In the U.K. we are facing threats once again of restrictions and vaccine passports being imposed over winter should the prospect of an ‘overwhelmed’ NHS be sounded by the Government’s medical advisers in the coming weeks.
But how realistic is this threat of health service ‘collapse’? South Korea is currently providing an object lesson in how the concept appears to be very much in the eye of the beholder.
The South East Asian country has been experiencing a spike in reported infections in recent weeks as the Delta variant has become dominant, hitting over 3,000 in one day for the first time on September 24th.
Three thousand ‘cases’ is very low, of course, compared to our 30,000 or so since early July, and the country is similar in size to the U.K., with a population of 52 million to our 67 million.
While the country does do less testing, deaths are also very low, with daily confirmed deaths currently between just five and 10 a day.
Excess mortality has also remained low throughout the pandemic, currently sitting at around 6% having been negative over the winter.
Despite these enviable Covid stats, though, the country is currently living under various Covid restrictions and the Government has said that while it plans to reopen, it will reverse course should ‘cases’ go above 4,000 per day. Why? According to the Government’s Minister of Health, Kwon Deok-cheol, the South Korean “healthcare system would not be able to cope with 4,000 or 10,000 new confirmed cases per day”.
At a Korea Broadcasting Journalists Club roundtable on Tuesday, Minister of Health and Welfare Kwon Deok-cheol said that South Korea’s medical response system would be “sufficiently capable” of handling a daily caseload of 3,000 or more confirmed cases and that the country would be able to proceed with a gradual return to everyday life, provided that the Government’s late-October targets of fully vaccinating 80% of adults and 90% of senior citizens are met.
He also said that the shift toward a “living with Covid” approach was not hasty, noting that while the U.K. began its gradual return to normal life while its full vaccination rate was just 1.6%, whereas South Korea had a full vaccination rate of 46.6% as of Tuesday.
But he also noted that observation of basic disease prevention guidelines such as wearing masks indoors and regularly ventilating indoor spaces would remain necessary, saying that “our healthcare system would not be able to cope with 4,000 or 10,000 new confirmed cases per day.”
“For that reason, we are considering a phased easing [of restrictions] – based on business types, for example – rather than a full-scale elimination [of said restrictions],” he added.
Vaccine passports are also being considered, apparently in order to protect the unvaccinated.
The South Korean government similarly explained that with the 976 critical care beds and 10,212 beds for patients with moderate symptoms that it had secured as of Tuesday, the South Korean healthcare system would be able to cope with as many as 3,500 new confirmed cases per day.
In addition to relaxing restrictions on private gatherings for fully vaccinated people and gradually removing restrictions on the use of multipurpose facilities, Kwon also said consideration was being given to the adoption of “vaccine passes,” where only fully vaccinated people or other restricted categories of people would be allowed to use certain establishments during the initial stages of the gradual return to everyday life.
He went on, saying that Germany grants permission for indoor events or use multipurpose facilities such as hospitals, long-term care facilities, nightlife establishments, and cinemas only to people who present a pass that certifies they have been either fully vaccinated, have tested negative for Covid, or have fully recovered from a previous Covid infection.
“With confirmed cases currently being observed among unvaccinated people – many of them leading to critical symptoms and even death – we are considering applying such an approach, if only to protect these people,” he said.
I have to say it is bizarre to read the same worries about ‘cases’ getting too high and putting unsustainable pressure on the health service in a country which is experiencing a fraction of our reported infections and an even smaller fraction of our deaths. How can we take this seriously when South Korea has more than three times the number of hospital beds that the U.K. has, 10 per 1,000 population compared to three per 1,000?
Nations whether in the East or West are now being held hostage by their health services and their supposed capacity to cope with coronavirus surges. But it’s clear from the very different scales of these supposed capacity threats in different countries that this spectre of an overwhelmed and collapsing health service is largely a figment of the political imagination.
No doubt a winter Covid wave can stretch a health service considerably. But if even England in January had thousands of empty hospital beds on January 18th, when the number of Covid hospital patients hit 39,254, and did not ‘collapse’ (and the Nightingale hospitals remained empty), then it’s difficult to see how the threat is in any way a realistic one. At that winter peak, Covid patients occupied less than a third of the total hospital beds (31%), while 8,696 beds remained unoccupied. Besides which, if winter hospital capacity is the crucial issue for lockdowns and other measures, would it not be a whole lot cheaper and more effective just to boost it more?
Lockdown proponents will claim that the U.K. winter wave was mitigated by restrictions. But the truth is the U.K. suffered one of the biggest winter surges in the world, regardless of what measures were in place in other countries. States in America with few or no restrictions such as Florida and South Dakota, and light-touch Sweden, did not suffer worse winters. There is thus nowhere that lockdown proponents can point to and say, look, that’s what would have happened here if we hadn’t locked down. There is no reason to think that without restrictions the U.K.’s winter surge would have ended up much worse.
While governments around the world continue to hold the threat of an overwhelmed health service over their populations as a kind of political blackmail (albeit often sincerely believed), the experience of South Korea shows that the threat is ill-defined, largely illusory, and not a sound basis for imposing illiberal measures and ruinous restrictions.
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All seems a little bit rehearsed, doesn’t it?
crisisgarden,
Not at all. Pure political ignorance.
Rehearsed, manufactured, carefully sequenced…yes, all this and more. I cannot see how increasing the price of oil will hurt Russia, who will find new customers. It’s easy to see how this embargo will hurt average Europeans though. And that seems to be the point, doesn’t it. We are being subjected to a precise attack designed to completely change the nature of society and the expectations of Western citizens.
And what a dangerous show they’re putting on.
We’re not looking at masterminds here, just people with a master (or mistress) complex.
This is appalling over-reach by the EU, and – as off_the_charts points out, it will hurt the “average European”. But then, Ursula and her ilk don’t care about them.
The West is indeed being subjected to an attack intended “to completely change the nature of society and the expectations of Western citizens”.
But I believe that although the intent is precise, the execution has an element of panic. The Russians should have collapsed by now and they have not. Let’s hope that they underestimate us, as much as they underestimated them.
Won’t Russia just sell the oil to someone else. India for example?
Yes and there’s a little country called China that might need a bit…
Russia has said that Europe is much smaller than the World.
Europe – getting less significant by the day – now just a poodle/parrot of the most discredited and deranged US Administration in our lifetime!
Actually, Europe is roughly as large as the USA and significantly more populous, despite it’s not much of a global power in its present, forcibly balkanized state,
The US has achieved a long term political goal of neutering Europe – as Victoria Nuland said on the Maiden in 2014 :”F*ck the EU”!
There we have it!
I guess the Russians will sell it to someone who’ll then sell it on to the EU.
Our very own Education Minister was, until a year or so ago a Director of Gulf Keystone, an oil company extracting oil from Iraqi Kurdistan, not far away ISIS were extracting oil from other wells. When you get into a commodity product like oil whose oil is whose once it’s gone up the chain all gets very murky.
Russia is one of the five members of the so-called Brics group (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). As Liam Halligan pointed out in his Telegraph column last Sunday, China, which is hosting their next get-together in June, has said: ‘The emphasis willl be on fostering high-quality partnerships among group members.’ That includes building financial superstructures seprarate from the West.
The West can huff and puff as much as it likes, but that only fosters a growing opposition from the rest of the world.
By “orderly fashion” she means that “they” do not know how to make the embargo. Russia is an empire. The EU isn’t and isn’t an union. May be an onion?
An onion is composed of many malodourous layers which, when peeled away, reveal nothing at the centre. So, yes.
As with arming Ukraine, halting imports of Russian oil may be the right approach. But there needs to be a substantive debate before von der Leyen’s proposals become law.
The appropriate people to debate it are first the national EU representatives and I am fairly sure they will have been debating the resolution intensely and are aware of the points you make. Then there will be further debate at the level of country leaders to gain the required unilateral agreement.
Well, our countries seem to be run by mad/bad clowns who do not appear to have our best interests at heart/don’t give a shit about ordinary people, so that doesn’t give me much confidence
Would anybody trust any of em to run an hot dog stall?
Answers on a postcard to 10 Downing Street, London.
If you’d looked into how the European Empire is run, you wouldn’t be fairly sure of that at all.
Bear in mind that Empress Ursula was “elected” via a ballot with 24 languages but only one name on it.
Does the EU’s Oil Embargo Make Sense?
Yes.
Totally… if you’re seeking to destroy your national economies ability to survive as a modern day first world state… Especially too, if your country’s a net energy importer. By deliberately cutting off affordable energy supplies you willfully accelerate the destruction of SMEs, oil and gas using tourism, agricultural food production, and general day-to-day industry.
Why would any sane Govt do this?
They wouldn’t unless they had bought in totally to the WEF/UN/Globalist eugenics obsessed zero carbon BS, and were keen to force their citizenry into social credit scores, CBDCs and “You’ll own nothing and be happy” lifestyles. All rated as conspiracy theories…
It’s all part of the New Normal.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fhq0VLYTqEo/
Anything involving von der Leyen is bound to be a complete horlicks. A good job for her that the vaccines proved disappointing after she bought them so late.
Folk I know from Germany tell me she was always a plank, so an obvious candidate for high office in the EU.
She’s a plank from a family that’s well-connected, as is her husband’s. I picked her out back in 2014 when she was German defence minister and making threats against Russia in relation to the Ukraine.
How long before she starts going on about Kaliningrad?
Presumably shortly after she’s done solving the nasty problem with all these people who believe that women can’t have penises and that slavery wasn’t invented by evil Europeans who desired to torture people from Africa which they continue to this day as they’re genetically incapable of being anything but evil.
Is there a chance that some or all of you will ever learn that the state that’s presently called German is administrated (not governed) by US stooges on behalf of the USA? Hence, they absolutely won’t object to ethnic cleansing the Russians carried out with the tacit agreement of their Western allies in the late stages of world war 2.
The issue isn’t “when will “we” learn that “the state that’s presently called German is administrated (not governed) by US stooges on behalf of the USA“”.
The issue is when will you learn that Russia is facing the same enemy as Germany should be facing, if it wishes to be governed in the genuine interests of its own people, rather than those of the US-based globalist zealot elites currently running it.
As far as I know US-based globalist zealot elites is code language for US democratic party. I’m not a citizen of the USA, hence, I don’t really care which party is currently governing in the USA. I’ll consider sympathizing with Putin once he withdraws his troops and colonists from the northern half of East Prussia.
I don’t believe calling in Beelzebub to drive out Satan will improve anything. Especially it both still justify their abitrary, Eurpean politics with the need to do something against so-called Nazis.
“As far as I know US-based globalist zealot elites is code language for US democratic party. I’m not a citizen of the USA, hence, I don’t really care which party is currently governing in the USA. ”
Nope, it’s not a simplistically partisan thing. the woke globalist war party in the US is bipartisan as far as Republican/Democrat is concerned. The difference is that there are some (more or less) genuine populists in the senior ranks of the Republican Party, whereas there really aren’t amongst the senior Democrats.
Here’s a brief discussion today of one of the fronts in the fight for the soul of the US Republican Party:
“JD Vance: “what’s at stake in this primary is what kind of Republican Party will we have. Will we have the old Republican Party that started stupid foreign wars, that shipped American manufacturing base to China, and that didn’t actually defend America’s cultural values.”
….
Carlson: “I know for a fact there are a lot of Republican Senators in Washington who are terrified by the idea of you getting there. Are you aware of that?”
JD Vance: “I’m certainly aware of it, Tucker. In fact if you live in Ohio you’ve seen $20m, close to that, of negative advertising, almost all of it focussed against me. Interestingly enough, the same organisations that are trying to take me down in 2022, are the same groups that tried to take Trump down in 2016. It’s actually the exact same pro-China anti-American organisations.””
Tucker: This is why Democrats are taking us to war with Russia
“I’ll consider sympathizing with Putin once he withdraws his troops and colonists from the northern half of East Prussia.”
Then you’ll keep on being a dupe for your real enemies, pushing toward a world where all of humanity is under the control of those you describe as administering Germany.
“Especially it both still justify their abitrary, Eurpean politics with the need to do something against so-called Nazis.”
The nazis are just one issue, and by no means the most important, in this conflict.
I really don’t care about US domestic politics because I’m really not an American. As to being a dupe, my personal opinions are pretty irrelevant as I don’t even have a right to vote anywhere, not even at the local level. Technically, I’m an income tax oxen owned by the British government.
That said, Russian hegemony in central and eastern europe ended and that’s a good thing. Without the help of their American (and – to a lesser degree – British) friends, the Russians would never have achieved that. I don’t care whom Putin believes to be fighting for as long as he doesn’t win. That would amount to getting a solved problem back instead of solving the remaining problem.
Empires tend to fall once the volk behind them culturally degenrates to the point that it can’t maintain the empire anymore. The nation of 1776 different genders and racism which does exist because human races don’t exist seems to be well on the way to accomplish that. Let’s wait and see.
American is the globally dominant power. Its internal politics matter to everyone, whether they like it or not, and whether they know it or not. That goes doubly for those who live within the US controlled zones, such as the UK and Europe.
You can ignore it, for sure, just like you can ignore the weather forecast, but you’ll still get wet when it rains.
As for your fantasy of “Russia coming back”, that’s rather comical at the moment. Win or lose in the Ukraine, Russia is not even in the ball park of returning to Soviet era post-WW2 dominance in eastern Europe.
Russia regaining control of Ukraine would be movement in the wrong direction. This may still be a far cry from the US-armed red army occupying a power vacuum in central and eastern Europe (minus Yugoslavia) but it would be a stronger Russia still.
Unnecessary rudeness.
Not to be taken seriously, as a consequence.
I couldn’t see the rudeness to which you allude. Care to point it out?
Check her Grandad out.
Yes the price is high – but the price of surrendering control to Putin is even higher.
Firstly, Noah is quite wrong to assume that the war won’t still be going past the end of the year. It could take years, just as the Donbass war has.
Secondly, Putin has broken a crucial political taboo, by using Russia’s stranglehold on energy supplies to blackmail Europe. (It’s been used to control Ukraine and Belarus for decades, but never the EU.) This is a fatal error because it has convinced everyone that Russia is an untrustworthy supplier. Europe is now committed to eliminating Russian hydrocarbons (and switching to renewables) – the only issue is how long it takes.
Thirdly, the situation is more complicated than Noah allows for. See this from the Financial Times:
‘Oil is much less reliant on pipeline deliveries than gas. But the west buys 70 per cent of Russia’s oil and oil product exports, and the great bulk of Moscow’s oil pipeline and maritime export routes point west. Moscow’s one oil pipeline to China — which buys only a fifth of its oil exports — is at full capacity. Redirecting oil by sea to big Asian importers such as China and India would require scores of supertankers making weeks-long journeys from Russian Baltic and Black Sea ports. Many shipping companies may shy away from handling cargoes for fear of being hit by sanctions — and rival suppliers will fight to preserve market share. The tricky geology of Russia’s oilfields also means it cannot turn off supplies as easily as, say, Saudi Arabia. If Russian wells are capped as there are no buyers, many may be difficult or unviable ever to reopen.’
The fact is, we’re in uncharted waters and no one can be sure how this will play out – not Russia, not the EU.
Long term, Russia has lost by far its largest customer for its only significant product. That’s disastrous, whatever happens in Ukraine.
“Secondly, Putin has broken a crucial rule, which is to use Russia’s stranglehold on energy supplies for political ends against Europe. “
This of course is a flat lie. Russia has never indicated any intention to not supply oil and gas to any EU country that pays for it.
“Long term, Russia has lost by far its largest customer for its only significant product. That’s disastrous, whatever happens in Ukraine.”
Since oil and gas are traded globally, in the long term any oil and gas the EU buys elsewhere will most likely merely displace other buyers (by outbidding them), resulting in demand elsewhere for Russian oil and gas. There will be short term disruptions due to rejigging transport routes and installations, but that’s far more of a problem for Europe than for Russia. As long as there is demand for oil and gas, Russia will b able to sell it.
Russia has never indicated any intention to not supply oil and gas to any EU country that pays for it.
They’re attempting to vary the payment conditions but in any case, it’s absurd to rely on energy supplies from a country which you’re (effectively) at war with.
Like I said, this is complicated. As the FT says, it will be years before Russia can building new export infrastructure, even if they can find enough buyers.
“They’re attempting to vary the payment conditions but in any case, it’s absurd to rely on energy supplies from a country which you’re (effectively) at war with.”
The answer of course is not to let people with ulterior motives manipulate you into confrontational situations.
There’s no good reason why Europe should be “effectively at war with Russia” over the issue of who controls which bits of the Ukraine. It wouldn’t have happened if there had not been aggressive EU and US interference, and it simply isn’t of any real strategic interest to Europe (as in the peoples of Europe, rather than the elite ideologues and oligarchs). Which is why, of course, all the argumentation pushing confrontation is so dishonest and emotive.
“Like I said, this is complicated. As the FT says, it will be years before Russia can building new export infrastructure, even if they can find enough buyers.”
It will also be years (decades probably) before Europe can build the infrastructure to replace Russian oil and gas, and even then there will have been a permanent increase in base energy costs.
So Russia likely gets a drop in foreign currency earnings, which it doesn’t particularly need, while Europe gets a drop in energy availability and a permanent price hike and resulting drop in competitiveness. Energy, of course, as Byron King, geologist, former U.S. Department of Defense adviser on national energy policy, former aide to U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, recently pointed out, is the foundation of everything;
“I’m an energy guy, I’m an oil and gas guy and I like uranium…the Biden administration right now…it does not have an energy policy. It has an environment policy, and the environment policy is really a climate policy, and that climate policy is all about closing down fossil fuels because of CO2 … everything about it. No Keystone XL, no drilling, no leases, no permits,..all of that. And if it hadn’t been for…the world getting into this energy situation in Europe, you know, Ukraine, Russia, and jacking all the prices up by double and triple numbers – even more, in terms of what they pay in Europe for natural gas, if it hadn’t been for that we would still be living with this crazy climate policy masquerading as an energy policy.
We’ve screwed up energy. And energy is the foundation. Everything takes energy to produce …. it’s all about energy, and when you screw up energy and you jack up the input on the energy side, you have screwed up everything, and that is why this inflation is structural. And I don’t know what the cure is, but it’s going to need a whole revamping of the approach to energy and I don’t just mean building more windmills or something.”
Russia Secretly Hoarded Gold for This Moment; Sanctions to Backfire on U.S
Russia’s economy is massively dependent on hydrocarbons. Some estimates put it at over 70%: https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/61272
Europe was already on a path to switch to renewables, this will now be accelerated.
Although it is certainly very painful for Europe, that is nothing to what Russia faces.
(In addition, you make all kinds of assumptions about the reasons for war which I think are quite wrong, but that’s another issue).
The simple and obvious point is that you can’t rely on energy supplies from a country you’re at war with – that’s insane.
“Russia’s economy is massively dependent on hydrocarbons. Some estimates put it at over 70%: https://carnegiemoscow.org/commentary/61272”
That sounds just like all the other arguments in favour of sanctions that we’ve heard over the past few decades, as the US sphere has used its economic dominance as a weapon of aggression.
Oddly enough,. none of the targets collapsed as predicted, though the smaller ones certainly have suffered. We shall see if Russia and China and the other remaining more or less independent nations can resist the US bid for total global control.
“Europe was already on a path to switch to renewables, this will now be accelerated.”
That, of course, is collective self-harming based upon delusional ideology. It will be interesting to see whether the false panic narrative of climate alarmism can survive for much longer. When it collapses, there will be a lot of recriminations about the costs incurred.
Regardless, it just means less competitiveness for European industry.
“(In addition, you make all kinds of assumptions about the reasons for war which I think are quite wrong, but that’s another issue).”
Not assumptions, well documented and reasoned conclusions based upon reality, rather than the self-serving Cold War and ideological fantasies of the other side.
Putin doesn’t promote bum sex with children so the globalists really hate him.
Literally Hitler.
The West has opted for economic sanctions instead of war. Is that a bad thing?
Sanctions are notoriously slow-impacting but Iran is hardly profiting from the situation.
Russia is unusually vulnerable because hydrocarbons are an unusual percentage of its economy.
Sanctions are economic warfare – see US/Japan 1941
Yes, but much better than actual warfare.
There isn’t one single NATO member who is looking for actual war over this issue, Not one.
Actually, this is what Putin relied on beforehand.
Putin would never have attacked Ukraine if he believed NATO was looking for war. I know that’s what he says, but the man has been known to lie…
Sanctions are just economic warfare – the unstable, rogue US seems to have gone for the nuclear option in Russia sanctions…. a snubbed and threatened Russia plays a cool, hard game – they play ‘Nuclear ‘sanctions.
The US forced a cornered Japan into war with oil sanctions in 1941 – Japan never really stood a chance.
Russia is not 1941 Japan – it has hypersonic missiles and the largest stock of upgraded Nuclear weapons on the planet and after two months of combat experience, a battle hardened, well equipped , National Army.
Globalist/US puppet Von der Leyen destroyed the Bundeswehr, with her open contempt for Nation States she now seems intent on destroying the unity and credibility of the EU and Nato too.
Johnson seems content to use his absurdist clown reputation for Grandstanding to ruin the international standing of the UK while Truss makes the FO an International laughing stock!
We shake our heads, watch and learn while the lunatics wreck the asylum.
If you think Russia’s army has been enhanced by its performance in Ukraine, you are very much mistaken.
As the joke goes, before the war, Russia had the second best army in the world.
Now, it has the second best army in Ukraine.
The only joke here is you pretending to understand warfare or geopolitics.
I think you will find that nobody has ever said “Russia had the second best army in the world” maybe second largest.
Furthermore, if you believe Russia has committed regular military forces to the conflict you are deluded. The bulk of Russian forces are made up of conscripted troops and the equivalent of national reserves (territorial army/national guard) aided and assisted by Ukrainian rebels, with regular forces only being used in key positions.
If Russia had wanted to annex the Ukraine they would have by now, they have air superiority, but have opted (so far) not to destroy or castrate Ukrainian infrastructure, they have also committed a woefully small amount of military if they were attempting to overrun a country of that size.
What the media is telling you isn’t what is actually happening, they pulled the same trick in Syria, then went very quiet when the Russians actually committed forces instead of hiding behind proxies like the West did.
I don’t know how you can manage to unsee so many obvious signs. Putin’s myth was that Ukraine was not a real state, that nobody supported the government, and that it would topple with the first push – like Afghanistan. It was extremely to his advantage that he should take the country in a few days. Had that happened, there would have been a lot of noise and fuss, but essentially he would have got away with it. The EU would never have mobilised against him.
But that’s not what happened and now he is busy laying waste to the very assets he hoped to win control of. There are so many indications of military trouble – the destruction of the elite force that tried to take Kyiv airport, the retreat form Kyiv, the failure to take Kharkiv which is right on the border, the repeated false announcements of victory in Mariupol, the movement of troops from far away areas, the forced merger of units which have suffered too many casualties.
In war after war, the West’s opponents have been much less reliable about the facts on the ground. Argentina claimed to have sunk the Ark Royal 4x. After the war, it turns out the west was by far the most reliable.
Once again, you ignore everything that I have written.
“if you believe Russia has committed regular military forces to the conflict you are deluded. The bulk of Russian forces are made up of conscripted troops and the equivalent of national reserves (territorial army/national guard) aided and assisted by Ukrainian rebels, with regular forces only being used in key positions”
So you claim the VDV (paras) are elite, they are not, you claim they were destroyed, they weren’t. They failed to take Hostomel airport on the first day, and succeeded in destroying it on the second, thereby rendering it useless for use by Ukrainian forces.
“If Russia had wanted to annex the Ukraine they would have by now, they have air superiority, but have opted (so far) not to destroy or castrate Ukrainian infrastructure, they have also committed a woefully small amount of military if they were attempting to overrun a country of that size”
You seem to be under the impression they wanted to capture the capital? Well, they fooled you and the press. They have made no attempt to capture or encircle Kyiv, simply based on the small amount of military used in the region. The goal is in the East, this has been made clear on several occasions, even stated by Western military analysts.
But of course if you want to believe the propaganda, that’s your prerogative, it’s funny how every other day the press are saying how the Ukrainian army is doing so well, and then within hours their president is appealing for yet more help.
As for “false announcements of victory in Maripol” what resistance is there? Apart from an encircled steel factory with the remnants of a shattered militia.
“the forced merger of units which have suffered too many casualties”
Of course, this has never happened before during a conflict, how many reports have you read or seen of the Ukrainian military losing or being decimated?
I saw quite a grotesque video last week, where Ukrainian soldiers mistook advancing tanks coming up from their rear, obviously thinking they were friendly, they weren’t and there wasn’t much left after the Russian tanks had finished pounding them with cannon and machine gun fire. Poor bastards.
And finally-
“In war after war, the West’s opponents have been much less reliable about the facts on the ground. Argentina claimed to have sunk the Ark Royal 4x. After the war, it turns out the west was by far the most reliable”
I’m not sure where you have got this nonsense from, would you like to hazard a guess of how many Luftwaffe planes were claimed to have been downed by the RAF during the battle of Britain?
Or how many Tiger/King Tiger tanks were claimed destroyed by Allied ground forces during the liberation of Europe?
I’ll give you a clue, nowhere near as many as they said they did.
And guess what, this misreporting of combat missions is still going on today, heard of the Ghost of Kyiv?
It’s called propaganda, it happens on both sides, the art is finding common truth in both, you might want to research that first, then brush up on your lack of knowledge about war in general.
Putin said he had no intention of invading Ukraine, then did so the following day.
At what point do you start to notice he’s lying?
If it was the west saying, ‘we’ve got control of Mariupol, we’re just going to leave the last defenders to rot’ and then fail entirely to do that, you would be all over it.
Any lie Putin makes, you buy it.
Too long ago, last 50 years.
The fog of war is a real thing and if Russia does go on to win this war, I wouldn’t be surprised. But for the meantime, mere survival is a kind of victory for Ukraine.
At what point have I made any assertions he is telling the truth?
“Too long ago, last 50 years.
The fog of war is a real thing”
These were accounts from the time, so don’t try to pretend they aren’t relevant, I see you don’t do history either.
The Falklands war was the first of a new kind of war, which we have been able to some extent watch on tv. Not only do we know more about what happens, it’s also harder to hide what didn’t happen.
For example, the reporter with the Ark Royal who could not give specifics of a mission, but said ‘I counted them all out and I counted them all back’.
This has been supplemented by ubiquitous mobile phone use (although this is also where we see the most fakes, which has got so bad it’s of limited value.)
Mobile phone reports are now almost exclusively useful against one side, the west (eg the abuses in Abu Ghraib), because our state controlled opponents just deny everything.
Russian media is wholly under state control so there’s no independent voice.
I’m not sure why you keep bringing up the Falklands war as an example of anything, like it’s relevant?
But please do continue, I do remember being glued to the black & white TV we had at the time, due to the fact my father was there, one of my uncles with the paras, and a cousin who was aboard RFA Sir Tristram when it was attacked by Argentine (American built A-4 Skyhawks) fighters.
And I will tell you now, very little footage of the actual hostilities was broadcast, although they did manage to broadcast quite a few military maneuvers so the Argentines knew where we were, good old BBC.
They didn’t bother to report on several friendly fire incidents that occurred though
If you believe any of the Western “free” press isn’t controlled then that explains a lot.
The Vietnam War had plenty of televised footage, much of it with war journalists actually embedded with the combat troops, didn’t say anything about burning down villages and murdering children though did they?
In fact many GI’s returning from combat, and reporting these matters were labelled as communists for doing so by their own government!
Which bizarrely then had anti war protesters calling everyone who had served there “baby killers”
They televised most of the gulf war as well, didn’t mention anything about bombing civilians though did they?
Apart from that one incident where the Iraqi propaganda minister claimed the allies had hit a baby milk factory, but I digress.
Mobile phone footage can only be trusted if the side you support is filming it?
Does that also include video game footage if it fits your narrative?
You completely missed the point. The mobile footage from Abu Ghraib was massively destructive to the US, even though it came from their own troops.
In effect, mobile phone evidence is acting as a partial voice of conscience in warfare.
But this doesn’t happen in Russia because the government has total control of the media.
Just rubbish.
No, I ignored your point, like you ignore mine.
I know what happened there, it wasn’t news to me then and it isn’t now, far worse things have happened and will never be reported on.
Unlike the UK press getting in on the act and releasing photos of alleged crimes that British troops had committed, that turned out to be false.
Piers Morgan was involved in that propaganda.
“Just rubbish”
Really? Go look it up
You do realise that you haven’t been right once in all the exchanges we have had, don’t you?
Keep living in blissful ignorance, not my problem.
Please, let’s save ourselves from writing this kind of comment. I think I’m right, you think you’re right. Doesn’t need to be repeated.
You’re in a majority on this site. But it’s a fringe site.
“I think I’m right, you think you’re right”
I know you are wrong, you know I am right, I have backed all my comments with facts not opinions.
Understood?
The militia of the DNR are impressive, I agree.
How about selling oil to a country “you’re (effectively) at war with”?
You write as if NATO countries are entitled to turn trade with “barbarians” on and off, whenever they like, regardless of how the said sh*thouse NATO countries actually behave.
Would the boys in the 77th ostracise you if you started questioning that assumption?
It’s logical that when you are at war with a country, as Europe is with Russia, then you need to buy your energy from somewhere else.
Milo Minderbinder didn’t agree. His syndicate bombed his own airstrip and everybody profited (well, except those who died).
It’s necessary to be able to separate fact from fiction.
Indeed. I was alluding to how such fiction has become fact.
Western Europe placing itself hostage to Russian gas was always going to come unstuck, but who could convince the clowns who always seem to end up in charge?
Given that energy supply is the basis of any modern economy, how did such short-termism ever come to be accepted? The Germans couldn’t have been worried, since they kept returning Merkel to power.
They’re worried now, though.
Well that’s you stumped then
Are you labouring under the mis-assumption in this war between ‘Good and Evil’, that we are the good guys..?
I made no comment on the rights and wrongs of the war, only on the economic effects.
let me help you out on that, all wars are bad, long wars are less bad than long ones.
Snootski, you love war, so long as Putin wins them.
You’ll be cheering on the next war on Moldova, if he gets that far.
‘This is a fatal error because it has convinced everyone that Russia is an untrustworthy supplier.’
Russia hasn’t cut off supply has it?
Even for those actively supplying weapons to Ukraine.
They’re threatening to if their conditions aren’t met.
Putin was convinced that Europe wouldn’t dare to challenge him because of energy. So long as he never played that card, the EU didn’t have the unity to do anything about it.
Projecting much are we?
You mind melded with Putin at the moment are you Mr Fungal?
What? You think no one noticed Putin had a stranglehold on Europe’s energy? It’s been dominating geostrategic thinking for years.
What are you talking about, Fingal? Not selling oil to countries with regimes that are considered by the producer countries to be bad boys, or using the possibility as a hold over them, has been done for generations. The practice has often been called the use of “sanctions”. There has never been a “taboo” against it.
What I want to know is when will the USA stop importing Russian uranium for its nuclear power stations.
Those who dwell in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones.
Try sorting your own despot government out before trying to sort out somebody else’s.
The only thing that this “oil embargo” will achieve is making the poorest and most vulnerable citizens of the west even poorer and more destitute.
Can you explain how Britain managed to have “fuel shortages” months before the conflict in Ukraine?
Especially considering that there was a worldwide glut of oil only a few months before that, with all the OPEC members trying to undercut each other and produce more, at a time when oil couldn’t be sold due to lack of demand.
Maybe you should be asking where are those oil reserves?
I’m not trying to sort out anyone’s government, I’m just pointing out that Noah’s article is far from balanced. An oil embargo, if it comes, will hurt everybody. But it’s going to hurt Russia very much harder.
Either way, long term Putin has completely screwed up Russia’s economy. He’s just lost his biggest customer for his only important product. Decoupling from Russian energy will be painful. But once it’s done, there’s no going back.
How long have the west been imposing sanctions on Russia?
Have they collapsed? No
Russia won’t be harmed by an energy blockade simply because there is demand for it elsewhere in the world, countries who don’t rely on the Western sphere of influence.
Also the fact that Russia has precious metals in reserves that the West could only dream of.
The sanctions Russia has faced until now were minor, which is precisely why Putin thought he could get away with this invasion.
By the way, he still hasn’t even admitted it’s a war. Yet you trust him.
“Yet you trust him”
No, I trust him about as much as Biden, Boris, the EU and anyone else who thinks armed conflict is an acceptable way of doing business.
So you can stop with your projections that I support any of them.
But you seriously need to remove your blinkers and take a look over the fence, stop blindly following the herd and figure things out for yourself.
There’s no way you can do this, and buy Putin’s crap at the same time.
You’re not in the least independently minded and you overlook any mistake he makes.
There is no way you can do this, because you have a closed mind and will only accept Western crap, is that correct?
I have told you before, it’s very easy for me to see both sides of a debate and get a grasp of the situation, for you, not so much.
It might be better for you to finish school and get a job in the real world first.
After you’ve been around the globe at least a couple of times; been beaten and pummeled by real life experiences and you’re still standing THEN; maybe try again commenting in the world of tried, tested and gnarly grown ups!
Definitely on target. Well said!
Don’t encourage him, it’s cruel
It makes sense provided you remember that the objective of those making the decision is, as it has always been, to regime change Russia in order to bring more of the world into their orbit.
Also that the people in question will not bear the costs of the decision, mostly, at least so long as they can retain control of the media narratives and can continue to suppress dissent in the countries they already rule.
Remains to be seen if they are correct in the later assumptions, as it remains to be sen whether Russia’s decision to use force will prove to be a successful counter to their long term strategy of aggressive confrontation.
And of course in the US there’s an added motivation for the Democrats and Trump-delusionals:
Tucker: This is why Democrats are taking us to war with Russia
It makes perfect sense. It’s called the Great Reset: Agenda 21-30.
Russia should help out the EU and withdraw oil and gas supplies immediately.
Aye, there’s the rub. For all the talk of “Mad Vlad”, and of plucky Ukraine being on the cusp of surrounding Moscow, Putin hasn’t even shut off the oil and gas to Ukraine, let alone the rest of Europe.
He could reduce Europe to a medieval state within a couple of days, if he wanted to.
He doesn’t want to. But, if given nothing to lose, well, why not?
“He could reduce Europe to a medieval state within a couple of days, if he wanted to.”
Well, we’ve got enough medieval ‘scientists.’
The foreign exchange markets are saying that sanctions make no sense, and that the EU is managing to cut off its nose without even spiting its face.
https://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=RUB&to=EUR
The Rouble up around 30% on its pre-war level against the Euro.
Just today, up a further 1% against the dollar at around 66 to the dollar.
It also looks like the decision to exclude Russia from SWIFT, and also to cut its access to its forex reserves held abroad in USD and EUR, will lend impetus to Russia and allied nations constructing a new international monetary system based on gold and commodities.
It all seems very short-sighted and symbolic to me.
Important also to remember that a lot of the wealth of the US sphere countries is based upon dollar preeminence globally. If that goes, it will likely go quite suddenly and have catastrophic long term economic costs for the countries that have been subsidised by it throughout our lifetimes.
It’s the equivalent in the economic sphere of the risk of nuclear war that our elites are running on our behalf in the military sphere.
Neither might happen, or even be very likely, but the costs of either would be so high that it’s insane even to run the risks.
The crazies who staged the 2020 Coup in the US, actually want to bring down the dollar!
Given the discount that Russia is currently selling its oil with, there will be no shortage of buyers in preference to Middle Eastern sources. Of course the Arab oil businesses won’t need to drop prices because the former market for Russian oil will be desperate for oil at any price.
You don’t need to be an economist to work this out.
They literally can’t transport the oil to where they now need it to go.
In China, Russia is selling oil at a steep discount to independent operators, because the main state operators don’t dare to take it (for fear of secondary sanctions). And that’s China, who are Putin supporters.
It is reported that the permanent representatives of the EU countries failed to reach an agreement because Slovakia, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Bulgaria opposed the imposition of an oil embargo on Russia. The talks have been rescheduled for May 5th.
Does it make sense?
About as much as advancing civilisation one bomb at a time, one jab at a time, one lockdown at a time etc.
It is no business of the EU.
1. The military operations between Ukraine, Donbass & Lugansk Republics, & Russia are none of anybody elses business but theirs. NATO is trying to convince the rest of the world to become emotionally invested in military operations which are none of anybody else’s business. We need to resist this push to become emotionally invested in these operations.
2. This is a local conflict and will remain so if we push back our politician’s desire for more war. No, “Europe” is not under attack from Putin, “Europe” is attacking itself via suicidal sanctions and suicidal economic policies. No Putin is not the new Hitler, nor is Zelensky. None of them is intent on world domination. The only party intent on world domination is NATO as the military branch of the New World Order/ Global Government/ Great Reset.
3. No this military operation is not “genocide” by Russia that needs to be stopped, it has been launched in fact to prevent an almost certain genocide of ethnic/cultural/politically Russians in Ukraine, residing in the East and South of the country.
4. No, this is not a random Russian “land grab”, it is the result of the CIA takeover of Ukraine since 2014 and the relentless campaign to turn Ukraine into an anti-Russian battering ram, through one of the most effective propaganda campaigns of the modern era, which totally brainwashed the vast majority of the centre and West of the country into seeing Russia as some sort of cartoon like evil enemy rather than a super-power with which it is necessary to seek compromise with to maintain the peace.
5. The US prepared the “lend-lease” transfer of billions of dollars of weapons to Ukraine long before Russia’s military operation, this may even be the most likely reason for the Russian military intervention, to intervene before Ukraine was flooded with weapons that were destined to be used on the ethnic/culturally/politically Russian populations.
6. All of the above is not the business of any other country but those involved directly apart from others seeking to encourage a peace process that will inevitably need to concede to all sides, it can’t be a one way street.
Via Telegram Channel: @RobinMG
Open the window wider! Fresh air is rushing in!
Those whom the Gods would destroy they first make mad
Don’t worry we can just install half a dozen more wind mills and we won’t need that smelly old oil.
It seems to me that the entire western world’s leaders (inc. NZ and Aus) have gone absolutely fucking insane. I don’t know about WTF, but it’s certainly a case of WEF.
Schwab has infected them all with his CIA induced grandiose “World Domination’ delusions!
‘…unless the fighting continues past the end of 2022.’
Fighting will definitely continue beyond 2022.
Maybe the world has forgotten how real nation states are forged?
‘Nobody has yet explained why it’s unacceptable to fund ‘Russia’s war machine’ but it is acceptable to fund ‘Saudi Arabia’s war machine’.
A wild shot in the dark: The first duty of government is the defence of the realm.
Spot the difference:
Oh!…….There isn’t any………..
“an “EU source” told Reuters that Hungary and Slovakia – two countries that are heavily dependent on Russian oil – will have until the end of 2023 to phase out imports.”
Or else what? Is von der Leyen going to tell them off?
The Hungarian government has said it will veto Ursula Hitler-Face’s proposal anyway.
The EU Commission are looking like a right bunch of tw*ts. “Embargo” Russian oil – LOL. Will that be before Russia stops supplying it to the countries that are militarily supporting the Kiev government, or after?
The biggest importer of Russian oil is China.
It is ‘politically incorrect’ smacked bottoms for all UVDL’s ‘naughty children -then – bed with a dose of Caster Oil, cold showers, no supper and with the heating and lights turned off.
They tried strong arm tactics over Brexit. You would think they would have learned by now. A continent with no standing army (and who in their right mind would allow Germany another one) wholly dependent on NATO. Putin is grinning like a Cheshire cat at their arrogance.
‘Is being beholden to the gulf monarchies so much better than being beholden to Russia?’
Let us not forget that high oil prices are good for fracking which means that the USA is beholden to neither.
Added to which, Russia’s sale of oil to one chief customer, China, makes for an uneasy relationship, not entirely to the disadvantage of the USA.
It is a measure of how badly we have been led in this country over the last thirty years that we do not enjoy similar freedoms regarding fracking and much else.
Nevertheless, unlike Europe, this country now imports only relatively small amounts of oil and gas from either Russia or the Middle East.
Added to which, Iran, backed by China, represents a real threat to Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states. The Gulf currently sits on the fence regarding the Ukraine invasion. They enjoy the high oil prices that have resulted.
They may not enjoy what follows quite so much.
I thought Russia had forced all its citizens to take the ‘Covid vaccines’. Won’t they all be dead of ‘ADE’ sometime before last Christmas?
There was no such mandate. Having worked and lived in Moscow, I still have many friends there. Most of them are untainted by the vaccine.
I have an acquaintance who lives there. A journalist who moved there when the wall came down, and he said he would never move back to the UK because Russia was a freer country than anywhere in Europe.
Obviously Germany isn’t allowed to agree trade deals with other countries, but is it allowed to stop trading with another country off its own bat and without reneging or setting aside its EU treaty commitments?
(When Donald Trump met Angela Merkel, he kept saying they were going to agree a “great deal”, and the German side told him about 10 times that Germany is not allowed to agree trade deals because it’s in the EU, but when he was leaving he still said “We’re gonna do a great deal, yeah?”)
Trump usually got his way. He said he’d make the Mexicans pay for the wall, then negotiated a deal with them to patrol it and keep immigrants out of America, which effectively paid for the wall.
He negotiates the historic Abrahams accord, specifically by keeping the Palestinians out of it and having the Arabs suffer the inevitable backlash, which they quelled.
If Trump said he would do a deal with Germany, you can be sure he would have, just not the way one would expect. Remember, VW, Mercedes, BMW and Audi all have massive manufacturing facilities in America. every X model BMW in the world is made there. He had Merkel’s nuts on his grasp and could squeeze whenever he wanted.
EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen
How did von der Leyen get to be President of the EU Commission?
When did she stand for election? When was she voted into office? Who voted for her?
Merkel ‘fixed ‘ it for her -anger was such that she only just made the necessary confirmation vote.
Both WEF pupils of course
24 languages, one name on the ballot. Democracy, European Empire style.
There’s also the small issue that they are not ‘funding Russia’s war machine’.
Russia’s war machine is funded entirely in Roubles, as it will need to be if it is to be sustainable. And, like with the war equipment, they make those themselves.
Russia has no use for Euros or US dollars at all – since it cannot purchase anything with them. They are now worthless promises, that have been shown to be cancellable on a whim. The rest of the world has taken note.
Russia can simply cut out the middleman and buy the oil and gas internally with the Roubles it is currently issuing against Euros and Dollars in order to keep the exchange rate down.
The Russians have Sergey Glazyev. He understands how a sovereign currency works.
It’s very likely that Russia won’t give the EU time to adjust. They will simply do a dead stop, and the European leaders will be left blinking in the sunlight having discovered that they weren’t wearing any clothes at all, despite the assurances of all the experts they had consulted.
The correct approach is the exact opposite. Take as much stuff from Russia as possible, pay for them with Euros and dollars. That ties up Russian production and manpower that cannot then be diverted to the war effort.
Then just keep cancelling the Euros and dollars if the Russians don’t give up.
https://tomluongo.me/2022/05/04/the-great-currency-reset-and-why-europe-is-trapped/
Sixth sanctions package?
Is that like the fourth booster shot? This one REALLY does the job?
Too many bloody clever clogs on this thread trying to get one over on a troll.
Yawn.
The only thing sanctions do is persecute the people of the country they are directed at. And do we not think Putin has thought of this?
He’s stockpiled enough war materials to last for years in Ukraine.
And as others have pointed out, he’ll just sell his Oil and Gas to China and India.
Have sanctions ever worked? They have been imposed, variously, on Russia for decades. Similarly N. Korea, parts of the middle east including Iran, and China for that matter.
It’s all propagandic bluster, designed to impress the European and American people whilst doing nothing that affects the target country other than, as I said, persecute the citizens.
The question is of course why, if as NATO* claims it doesn’t have a desire to expand eastwards, would it not negotiate a deal with Putin to stay well away from Ukraine. No more clandestine training and arming of troops and certainly no EU membership as that’s just an open door for NATO.
The only reasonable conclusion that can be reached is NATO believes that by pouring enough arms and clandestine personnel into the country, Putin will eventually withdraw and leave the country clear to be weaponised by NATO.
The upshot of that strategy is that Putin does occupy the whole country, cuts supply lines of arms and resources from the west, and starves out what would then amount to a Ukrainian Guerrilla army with a dwindling supply of arms and supplies.
He would be entrenched in the country for years, it would become a refugee nightmare for Europe, but Putin would get what he wants by keeping NATO out.
We’re looking at yet another long running conflict perpetuated by the west’s interference and belligerent determination to get its own way, which hasn’t worked out well in any conflict it’s had recently. We need only look to Biden’s Afghanistan disaster to recognise that. The big difference is, Russia has a well provisioned military and Afghanistan didn’t. Well, not until Biden left $80Bn of kit there.
*NATO = Biden
When we have seen the governments reaction to COVID we see incompetence, disorganization, group think, lying, exaggeration and personnal power trips by leaders that resulted in untold harm, deaths and destruction and these are the same people who are pushing the world perilously close to a nuclear confrontation. We should all be very afraid.
The EU’s oil embargo makes great sense to anyone who will benefit from Russia’s oil being removed from the western markets, thereby allowing prices to rise due to supply side challenges.
It makes absolutely zero sense for the hundreds of millions of ordinary Europeans who know full well that the USA received ZERO sanctions for 10 genocides the past 80 years.
Europe is run by treasonous puppets who betray their own people to curry favour with psychopaths in the USA.
There has never been a stronger reason to abolish the EU, break it into one hundred pieces, so that Europeans can be ruled by those who answer to the interests of ordinary Europeans, once again.