Know Thy Enemy

from Sun Tzu’s “Art of War”


“Know yourself and know your enemy.
You will be safe in every battle.
You may know yourself but not know the enemy.
You will then lose one battle for every one you win.
You may not know yourself or the enemy.
You will then lose every battle.”
[Art of War 3:6:1–6]

Indicative of how things are turning out for Vlad.

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Author: patd

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

23 thoughts on “Know Thy Enemy”

  2. the guardian:

    Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has issued a stark message to western leaders, claiming if Ukraine had access to all the weapons it needs, the war would have “already ended” during his latest national address late on Tuesday evening.

    If we had access to all the weapons we need, which our partners have and which are comparable to the weapons used by the Russian Federation, we would have already ended this war. We would have already restored peace and liberated our territory from the occupiers. Because the superiority of the Ukrainian military in tactics and wisdom is quite obvious …

    It is unfair that Ukraine is still forced to ask for what its partners have been storing somewhere for years. If they have the weapons that Ukraine needs here, needs now, if they have the ammunition that we need here and now, it is their moral duty first of all to help protect freedom. Help save the lives of thousands of Ukrainians.

    If we had received what we are getting now in the first week of the war, the benefit for Ukraine and for freedom in Europe would be greater, I am sure. And if we get what some partners plan to hand over to Ukraine in the coming weeks right now, it will save the lives of thousands of people.

    I hope that the partners will hear this thesis and understand that every day matters. Any delay in helping Ukraine gives the occupiers an opportunity to kill more Ukrainians.”

  3. West sends Ukraine fighter jets, heavy weapons amid Russian attack in Donbas – The Washington Post

    Ukraine’s outgunned and outmanned military has held out against Russia for almost two months, and as Russia intensifies its attacks on Ukraine’s east and south, Western governments are dispatching heavier weaponry and warplanes to support resistance efforts.
    […]
    “We do the best we can with each package to tailor it to the need at the time, and now the need has changed,” Pentagon spokesman John Kirby said Tuesday. “The war has changed, because now the Russians have prioritized the Donbas area, and that’s a whole different level of fighting, a whole different type of fighting.”
    Ukraine has also received fighter aircraft and related parts from other nations, Kirby said. He declined to specify what kind of aircraft has been supplied or which countries have provided them.
    Some of the materiel will arrive ahead of expected clashes between Russian and Ukrainian troops in the eastern Donbas region that will be particularly bloody, said Chang Jun Yan, a military expert at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University. Future combat is likely to be larger in scale than recent battles between the two countries, he said, but Ukrainian troops who have been facing off against Russian-backed separatists in the region for years are also well trained to fight in Donbas.
    […]
    Most of the West’s arms “would not give the Ukrainian military the technological edge of the Russian military, but they will allow it to make up, at least temporarily, for the shortage of military supplies,” Muraviev said.

  5. “You can’t let Florida make health decisions for the entire country! That’s not smart. The Florida food pyramid is just gator jerky and meth!”

    A genius federal judge ruled that the CDC can’t mandate mask usage on public transportation, and France’s president Emmanuel Macron is pulling out all the stops in his bid to win reelection against his extremist challenger, Marine Le Pen.

  6. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/19/politics/us-weapons-ukraine-intelligence/index.html

    “The US has few ways to track the substantial supply of anti-tank, anti-aircraft and other weaponry it has sent across the border into Ukraine, sources tell CNN, a blind spot that’s due in large part to the lack of US boots on the ground in the country — and the easy portability of many of the smaller systems now pouring across the border.”

    “But the risk, both current US officials and defense analysts say, is that in the long term, some of those weapons may wind up in the hands of other militaries and militias that the US did not intend to arm.
    “We have fidelity for a short time, but when it enters the fog of war, we have almost zero,”

    Whelp, if the sky over Ukraine had been closed a month ago, things might look better there.

  7. I really did something in my searches that I cannot figure out.  I am now getting ads on Youtube that are in Hindi.  I could expect perhaps in Polish or Serbian, but not Hindi.  Ah, the mysteries of the algorithm.

  12. https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/20/us/william-husel-ohio-doctor-murder-trial/index.html

    “The Ohio doctor accused of overprescribing fentanyl to his critically ill patients and hastening their deaths was found not guilty of 14 counts of murder on Wednesday.”

    “Fentanyl is an opioid used to treat patients with chronic severe pain or severe pain after surgery, according to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). The drug, about 100 times more potent than morphine, is also often used in end-of-life care to reduce discomfort in dying patients.”

  14. As I wait for the water to boil for my tea I did some scanning of the intertubes.  My day ratcheted down another notch.  Martha Stewart is eighty.  Jesus Alou, this getting older is not exactly what I bid on.  At least she is older than me. Good that she is aging quite well, and has Snoop Dogg as a friend.

  16. UN chief requests meetings with Russian and Ukrainian Presidents | | UN News

    In efforts to end the war in Ukraine, Secretary-General António Guterres has written separate letters to the leaders of Russia and Ukraine to request meetings with them in their respective capitals, the United Nations said on Wednesday. 
    UN Spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric said Mr. Guterres has asked President Vladimir Putin to receive him in Moscow and President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to receive him in Kyiv. 
    The letters were handed over to the countries’ UN Missions in New York on Tuesday. 
    Urgent steps towards peace 
    “The Secretary-General said, at this time of great peril and consequence, he would like to discuss urgent steps to bring about peace in Ukraine and the future of multilateralism based on the Charter of the United Nations and international law,” said Mr. Dujarric. 
    “He noted that both Ukraine and the Russian Federation are founding members of the United Nations and have always been strong supporters of this Organization.” 
    The announcement came a day after the UN chief called for a humanitarian pause in Ukraine ahead of Orthodox Christian Easter this weekend. 

  17. a novel approach might be to ransom the viability of the new russian/crimean bridge (aka kerch strait bridge) and maybe throw in a threat to close off certain black sea waterways in exchange for vlad to withdraw from ukraine.

    a little well-placed bomb here and there that detonates remotely if demand is not met

  21. Trump Campaign must pay $1.3M to “Apprentice” star Omarosa (cnbc.com)

    An arbitrator ordered Donald Trump’s presidential campaign to pay $1.3 million in legal fees to Omarosa Manigault Newman, the former “Apprentice” star whom the campaign unsuccessfully sued over a book about her tenure as a White House advisor, her lawyer said Wednesday.

    The award comes nearly seven months after the arbitrator ruled in Manigault Newman’s favor that a confidentiality agreement she signed while working on Trump’s 2016 campaign was invalid under New York law.

     

    The campaign in 2018 had filed a complaint with the American Arbitration Association in New York against her claiming that she violated that nondisclosure agreement with a scathing tell-all book titled “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.”

    Manigault Newman’s lawyer John Phillips, in a statement, said the decision was the “largest known attorney fee award against a Political Campaign or President we can find and hopefully will send a message that weaponized litigation will not be tolerated and empower other lawyers to stand up and fight for the whistleblower and vocal critic against the oppressive machine.”

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