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Radio War Nerd EP #373 — World of Wars: The Insulted & The Humiliated (Patreon)

Published:
2023-04-14 15:12:28
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Recorded: April 11, 2023

The War Nerd & Ames catch up on current war-related events: toothaches, border crossings, Taibbi's humiliating thrashings, peace outbreak in Yemen, US diplomacy fails, the never-ending Bakhmut battle & more...

Total time: 1:29:20

Direct link to this episode's mp3 here 

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Comments

FB

In what way did DWS own Taibbi?

Ivan

Strange take, DWS looked like an idiot and made Matt look good

j

Having crossed the US Mexico border a number of times as white Americans, with a parent with confused papers, they seem to use a lot of unspoken discretion and contextual cues to get Americans back over, regardless of invalid paperwork.

NYCM&AHole

Yeah, DWS and Mehdi looked like dipshits.

NYCM&AHole

I managed to get back into Germany when I wasn’t supposed to leave on the papers I had (I went to a conference in Dublin). The best part, aside from not having problems, was telling the Germans they could speak faster. It put them at ease.

Kyle

The “camps” have indeed been closed for almost four years now. The Chinese government announced that they closed in 2019, and last year the Washington Post also agreed that they closed in 2019: https://archive.is/ExOrK

Alec

Mark’s point about Matt being an arrogant lightweight shines through on his lack of preparation. If you’re at Matt’s level you should have a document in front of you entitled “DWS roast cheat sheet” and easily dog walk her. He even tweet-challenged Mehdi and barely got a word in edgewise just let him walk all over him about a stupid acronym 🤣 makes DWS and Mehdi look smart to the normies and makes Matt look pathetic to his “peers”

Magic Mikey

“The Russian army is a joke.” This won’t age well. The analysis of the Ukraine war in this podcast is a joke if that’s what you think. They’re massacring the Ukrainian army on an industrial scale – a fact that’s being criminally covered up by the US and western MSM. It also suits Russia to downplay the vast casualties its inflicting. The Russian army is certainly taking large numbers of casualties in the process, but that’s modern industrial warfare for you. This isn’t a safari-like imperialist adventure where the enemy has no artillery, no satellites and you can call in an airstrike and a medevac whenever you need. The country is saturated with modern anti-aircraft defences – which is also the main reasons there’s been no attempt to impose a no fly zone. Having large numbers of your F35s shot down is not a good look. The Russian army is a joke? How long would the American army survive against them? Not as long as the Ukrainians I suspect. I hope we never find out or it may be the end of us all.

FB

I wonder how US forces would perform if trying to surround Kiev, given the problems they had securing supply lines in Iraq.

NYCM&AHole

True. He should’ve expected the Jim Garrison treatment from the JFK directors cut

John Waaben

I think a lot of delusional US policy decisions, speaking from the experience of going to college in DC, is (young) people just wanting a well-paying job and not really understanding what they’re doing having consequences OUTSIDE of DC. This happening for generations now! Terrified and terrifying little bubble with a manic, competitive rat race first for internships and then jobs and then for higher up positions like mr. Pete Buttigieg. Kids outta college follow orders from CIA cutouts (they don’t even know what that is) they got hired at and don’t really think about what the reality of what they’re doing- just the idea their job is doing some blanket good in the world, with the classic example being the spread of “democracy”. These political jobs aren’t even that political! Everything is abstracted or laundered to be “women’s defense company” or the “Lockheed Martin LGBTQ+ Mixer”. Not making this up I see this every time I’m on LinkedIn looking for work. The politics of their lives are focused on office culture WITHIN DC not the country or other countries. China is just seen as an anathema, a great un-Democratic Satan to struggle against like Trump. But that’s just their job! Their primary focus in life is getting drunk after their job and hooking up with other confused but morally righteous yuppies. Very strange, whole town with a company culture. Sometimes I would feel like there was a loud dissonant chord blaring off every building that’s too sharp to hear with human ears. Could really go on but I’m just bored at my own job right now far away from the Northern Virginia (thank god).

Ander Pierce

Thanks for the episode, and no worries regarding the newsletter on my end. I love it but pain is pain and I usually stock up on a big old archive of em in any case

Jess

That border guard liked you! Or rather he didn't see anything that set him off or made him feel envy, so it was easier to let you through and not have to deal with your kids crying, your wife crying, you getting angry, you're possibly strapped... There's nothing in it for him if he doesn't get any rush out of lording it over you.

CR

Breaking treaties is an American tradition for centuries. It ain’t new.

CR

My favorite Zenz lie was that the xinjiang fraudsters (probably not coincidentally) picked a number of 2.8-3million prisoners. Well, we know exactly how much living space it takes to inhumanely house 3 million people because that’s the size of the U.S. prison population. Idiots.

CR

This is 100% accurate. It also applies to all the domestic bullshit, too. Whether these apparatchiks work at DOD or DOT.

John Waaben

Yeah!! There’s no real difference between the “private” and “public” sector either. People pass through either with their jobs be it in a healthcare NGO, an insurance company, or a straight up CIA cutout that looks into “women’s health in 3rd world countries”. This is honestly one of my main arguing points when I say the US is pretty fascist bc of the porous cell well between these groups. Including energy, weapons, and pharmaceutical lobbying in this too and their role in governance and policy and making ACTUAL decisions

Doug Cartel

I have friends who metabolize painkillers so fast that they need multiple injections to get through one root canal, so it's completely plausible to me that ibuprofen will tranq some people harder than others. Like being a lightweight with booze or something.

R Renaldi

As someone who has to go to DC a decent amount for work but lives far away from it on a day-to-day basis it's fascinating to me how sucked in people are. Someone on Twitter the other day said tehy use to get so frustrated when they were a staffer and people would tell them "do something" and their response would be "they just don't understand how complicated it is" and then when they quit the bubble they realized how wrong they were. I feel like that's a boilerplate answer anyone in the bubble has - "you don't get it's complicated"

NYCM&AHole

You surround Kiev with the army you have, not the army you want

Doug Cartel

My personal opinion is that the Russians aren't going all blitzkrieg for a few reasons, the main one being force preservation(speaking as a nerd in the US watching this from far away): - Historically they have never been very offense-minded; they went to Berlin because they had to, not because they wanted to, and learned how to trade space for time very well when defending,which is where they get their reputation for "trapping you in the fire sack" or whatever. If the maps of Kherson were accurate at the time the fighting was happening, then a lot of ukrainians got slaughtered in a fire bag for a whole month on a river crossing before the Russians fell back at all. - The last couple of wars Russia did sucked ass and it doesn't seem like they want to repeat them. They didn't want to do afghanistan, they didn't have fun in Chechnya, they had ptsd nightmares about prague ffs, if the memoirs are right, anyways. - they know for a fact, and NATO has said over and over that this was the plan, that Ukraine is Afghanistan 2, - so, they have been working to keep casualty rates low, and they already said they don't care how long this takes, so fuck it, we'll go as slow as we like. All that human wave bullshit is just people pretending Enemy At The Gates was a documentary. - so, the only real offensive momentum we've seen is in Bakhmut, because, in the long run, who gives a shit about mercs? And the Russians are still outnumbered so they will let the artillery do all the work anyways. We're seeing two completely different fighting styles at work here; the ukrainians keep going "man if only we could break through their defenses, we could do a NATO style blitzkrieg with all these wunderwaffen game-changers and do all that lighting fast warfare NATO has been training us in", and Russia is dedicating itself to nullifying whatever advantage speed and maneuverability was supposed to give Ukraine. Unstoppable force vs immovable object. -from what I've heard, Ukrainian soldiers complain repeatedly that they never see Russian soldiers at all. it's just artillery constantly; sometimes recon teams set the targets and other times drones do. the Russians only seem to advance when they think the area is clear. Politically, this slow pace also helps convince Europe that this whole thing is a regional war and it only keeps going because Europeans want it to. But if Europe truly is stupid enough to send every last bullet they have to Ukraine, then what's really stopping Russia from going to Lisbon, and wouldn't they kind of deserve it for forcing Ukraine to keep killing itself like this? -This probably comes off as pro-russian or whatever, but this war could have been over a year ago if zelensky has just *taken the fucking deal*, but Boris just had to teach the russians a lesson and Azov was probably holding a knife to Zel's throat or something. So hey, if you want to lose a whole generation of Ukrainians taking some fucking peninsula so you can be IMF debt-slaves while Bezos takes selfies on Black Sea beaches in front of NATO warships in Sevastopol, who am I to stop you? Really though, deep down, I hate DC most of all because they absolutely knew what they were doing when they refused to do any diplomacy with Russia back in 2021. They just want dead Russians and they don't care how many Ukrainians die in the process.

Anil Nair

The Russian army is a joke. The American military would have wrapped up the conventional warfare 8 months ago and losing the guerrilla campaign after that. The amount of pro-russian delusion is something else here.

Anil Nair

Mahdi hasan made Taibbi look very unprepared. Only in this bubble you guys have these takes

Of course

I just listened to the Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Matt Taibbi exchange. The "point" she sort-of scored was that Taibbi's Twitter following tripled and that his Substack subscribers likely grew in number, that he profited from his media work. It was a weird, freakish performance, just bullying and talking over, where Rep. Schultz - a darling of the payday loan industry - was spanking someone for making money. Later, the MSDNC clown did the same yell-over barking bit. Taibbi's fans proceeded to do their share of responding on his behalf, which is really how the game is played today... Submit yourself to public persecution on TV with a mock-baffled look on your face, then watch your followers rip your tormentors to shreds in social media. Taibbi doesn't have to do a thing, since Schultz and Mehdi will not get the last word. Behold: https://twitter.com/RepDWStweets/status/1634660532060921856

Of course

I also have to add that, on Twitter, Debbie was kind enough to say, "Wishing all those who celebrate a happy Good Friday!" What a dimwit.

Mary Jordan

As retired Air Force and the parent of a 22 year old, I find it plausible that an E-3 at an ANG base would have access to sensitive documents. And it’s the most Zoomer thing in the world for the kid to post classified docs on Discord to impress the friends he doesn’t have in real life. It’s going to get worse. The big Air Force recently told the ANG to create 3,500 slots for “cyber security”. I know this because a buddy of mine found out that their entire AFSC was going to be deactivated in 2024 to make room for the new slots.

Of course

Really? An Air National Guard nobody would have Joint Chiefs of Staff For Your Eyes Only docs? Could you comment on the possible chain of custody there? (And I'm asking seriously, I know nothing about information management in military circles.)

Cindy Carrot

Wow, could "Dignified and Old" really be ironic? I had always read it as earnest in keeping with Jonathan's good-guy ways

J P 3

It's in the eye of the beholder. DWS stinks, but I thought she got the better of the exchange. Taibbi's methodology in reporting Twitter files was more akin to a court journalist or a PR flack than it was to a kind of hard-hitting journalist reporting without fear or favor.

The Fine Art Revolution

some real bad takes on ukraine here. Russia is using kit gloves trying to minimize its loses. Nato is proving to be very unstable at the moment, so there is a need to be conservative tactically in order to be prepared for a somewhat likely hot war with nato itself

Ivan

I find that when people in roles that are supposed to be information seeking, like journos conducting interviews or senators conducting inquires ask a question and then don't allow someone to respond, but instead cut someone off and try and herd the interviewee towards a specific answer in a "closing the gate" style technique you might use in cross examination of a witness in court, it just makes the interviewer look like they are acting in bad faith and not interested in any substantive answer and are just wanting a gotcha moment. I think most people see through that, and both Mehdi and DWS did that

J P 3

The hit wasn't just that Taibbi had profited off the reporting. She effectively threw Taibbi's own journalistic standard back in his face. e.g. if a source is spoon-feeding a reporter information and that reporter is effectively echoing the sources point of view without interrogating and contextualizing the information, then it isn't really reporting. It is public relations. e.g. relevant context is that the Trump administration (not a political campaign, but the highest ranking people in the U.S. government) were also actively in contact with Twitter attempting to remove information; there was the reference to links of Hunter Biden being censored, without really dealing with the fact that the substance of those links contained information that was a clear violation of Twitter's terms of service. You wouldn't have known that from Taibbi's reporting. However, it is relevant context for a particular narrative about government censorship by Democrats. The fact that DWS is a political hack funded by the payday loan industry doesn't really discount Taibbi's journalistic hackery. If anything it was game recognizing game. Two hacks getting rich off being hacks. Now Taibbi is in her club. Musk's actions since then relating to the BJP and censorship on behalf of the Indian government also tends to put this whole situation in another light.

J P 3

The U.S. military overthrew the Iraqi regime in a matter of weeks. The U.S. ultimately lost to a multi-year insurgency; however, Russia isn't even to the point of fighting against an insurgency. Over a year later it is still waging a conventional war in Ukraine. A closer analogy between Iraq and Ukraine would have been if Saddam was still occupying the seat of power in Baghdad in 2004 and if the U.S. military was bogged down trying to break through trench lines in Nasiriyah (put aside the fact that Russia has dedicated something like 85% of its active force in Ukraine that it doesn't have to transport people and equipment thousands of miles around the globe, while the U.S. at the peak had focused about 30% of the active duty force in Iraq and was limited to transporting the bulk of its forces through Kuwait).

J P 3

I don't think people like Pete Buttigieg actually make policy. People like Buttigieg rise through the ranks because they prove to be sufficiently loyal and capable enough to vested interests who do set policy. Vested interests don't always agree on policy, but the vested interests are the people and who actually shape and set policy. Vested interests = people and organizations who have financial resources to fund think-tanks, media and PR campaigns, and political campaigns (it's not just wealthy individuals and corporations doing the funding, it also included foreign governments). "Imperial Life In the Emerald City" by Rajiv Chandrasekaran is a good real world illustration of how this process works out in practice.

Red Herring McGuffin

the document leak is 100% a disnfo op, they put ukrainian casualties in the teens of thousands when we know its absolutely into six figures at this point they fuck with the uae as punishment for warming relations with syria, and the recent peace between iran and SA also you need to think about how this was leaked, the guy was on a small discord server with a bunch of teenage gun/video game nerds, and when they werent paying attention to all these documents he'd get mad at them and tell them to pay attention. it's one thing for some low level guy with a security clearance to leak stuff to brag, but it's clear he wanted this disseminated and studied, which it was. it's meant to look like some fuckup by a low level air national guard guy, but that just makes it so much easier for the media to paint this as such also the government almost immediately confirmed that they were real, and i think you're massively understating how close the relationship between the nyt and wapo is. nothing goes in either of those without the security apparatus wanting it to be there

Daniel

Expired passport: Guessing it's not about the physical passport so much as your status. Scanning the old passport probably looked up the status as unexpired. Waze: Once navigation sent me on weird routes and later I found that "avoid highways" had somehow gotten turned on. Wondering if that might be the case.

Daniel

Tried to give an objective listen to Mehdi Hasan's conversation with Matt Taibbi. Was curious if I would agree with the Radio War Nerd take since Mark clearly has a personal grudge. I didn't care for the fast-talking, argumentative, contemptuous style of debate. Seems more about attacking the other person/side than getting at the truth. Anyway, Hasan began with a monologue criticizing Taibbi for several minutes by way of introduction. Taibbi jabbed back over a couple faults he found with it. Then Hasan asked why the context of the Hunter Biden nude photo links hadn't been reported. Taibbi had no good answer in my opinion, and it does seem like a problem with a key claim in the reporting. Hasan also had a couple good points about the partisanship of Taibbi's coverage. In general Taibbi walked into an unfair fight and was outmatched, a stammerer (maybe nervous or rattled) debating a polished and fast speaker on their turf. Hasan apparently also has a team who fact checked Taibbi and found several errors with the reporting that he forced Taibbi to concede. Taibbi has no team helping him. So to me Taibbi didn't come off too well and I feel more convinced his Twitter reporting was politically slanted. To be fair Taibbi did bring up MSNBC's bogus Russiagate reporting which I think either John or Mark intimated he didn't but should have.

Magic Mikey

I’d like to see how the Iraq invasion would have gone if Iraq had possessed hundreds of s300 SAM systems like Ukraine did. Even with the older Iraqi systems it still took years of bombing radar stations and launchers throughout the country in the name of the “no fly zone” to degrade Iraq AA defence sufficiently. Even these older systems are a threat however. The F117 shot down in Yugoslavia was hit by an early 1960’s model SAM. The S300 is considerably more advanced. The Iraq invasion itself then took place after a sustained 3 month bombing campaign to destroy the remainder of the air defences. After 3 months of bombing, years of AA bombing and a decade of sanctions, The Iraqi ability and will to fight was virtually gone. When the US army actually invaded they found only local pockets of resistance. If you can’t see that the Ukrainian army in early 2022 was a completely different beast I don’t know what to tell you.

Animals in Motion

I don't get how people see Taibbi as coming out on top after Mehdi Hasan and DWS encounter. He looked unprepared and didn't have any good answers. Doesn't matter if they were right or not. DWS is a dolt, and MH is a fraud. Doesn't matter, Taibbi looked like he was stumped. Never a good look. He's been making an absolut ass out of himself over this whole Twitter and Musk thing. I'm not someone who despises Matt for the "wrong reasons", but messaging Musk like that, it's ... I'm sorry, it's just pathetic.

Mary Jordan

I’ll be honest, I retired 10 years ago and didn’t work in IT, but the A1C worked in an intelligence unit as a “Cyber Transport Systems Journeyman”, had a top secret security clearance and according to the criminal complaint “maintained sensitive compartmented access” to other highly classified programs. I’m guessing there is a major flaw in the way these documents are handled in the digital space and are not as “compartmentalized” as the AF assumed. This guy had the key and went poking around. Someone along the line didn’t do their job or assumed some other dept was taking care of it. I’m surprised this sort of thing doesn’t happen more often. A lot of heads are going to roll over this one though this kid will be the only one going to jail. I wonder how many people up the chain put in their retirement papers last week.

James

Mark's cricket noise around 40:00 is outstanding! Genuinely very impressed, more insect impressions in future please.

a clash of purple

RWN's position on the U.S. military is that the U.S. military is also terrible. Certainly if you consider how much it costs versus its capabilities and accomplishments.

a clash of purple

The United States is a fascinating, contemptuous, repellent society. There's a lot of things about it that are just the way things are at the center of empire, that were just as true of London or Rome or whatever, but it still puts its own stupid, annoying spin on a lot of stuff as well.

a clash of purple

I am unabashedly pro-Russian in this conflict, but only because if Russia conquers Ukraine, maybe they'll move on to conquer the rest of Europe, and those fuckers deserve it. It's just doing what the Soviets should have done eighty years ago. It's really, really hard to sympathize with countries like Britain and Germany. Ukraine, sure. In reality, this war really is just Russia bullying Ukraine. The violence is completely unnecessary. But I hope in some alternate universe somewhere, the Russian flag is flying over the smoldering crater that used to be London, and gleeful Russian conscripts are looting all the Germans' precious stockpiled caches of scat porn.

a clash of purple

For me, personally, I mostly don't like Britain (well, England) and Germany. The rest of them, whatever.

Jackm

I've had Waze fritz out on me many times over the years so I wouldn't rule out an unprompted activation of the "avoid highways" setting as the explanation for the route it gave Mark & co. But I also make pretty regular trips from Toronto to Niagara Falls to climb on Ontario's best boulders (in the beautiful Niagara Glen nature reserve) and I've experienced traffic on the 403/QEW that's so slammed a ~1-hour drive out becomes 3 hours getting home. On a long weekend, it's possible that Waze was offering an attempted circumnavigation of a jam like this. It's had me do stretches on back roads in either direction. In those instances I still questioned whether it was out to lunch, though.

James Evans

Meh. Young Christopher Hitchens wanted to see the Red Army watering their horses at Henley-on-Thames and look how he turned out

etienne

yeah I wouldn't have worried that much on the return trip, if Mark is an american citizen it's basically the US' number 1 job to get him back home right?

Aditya V

The passport situation reminded me of something similar from March 2009. I was working in Chicago and had to go to a coal power plant in Northern Wisconsin near Wausau to do some testing for a week. So i packed my luggage and set off in my car. Once I reached the destination and hotel around 8 pm, and opened the trunk, there was no luggage. I had left it behind the front door of my apartment in Chicago. Luckily for me, there was a mall right behind the hotel. Went in to find just one big clothing store open. And set about buying everything from briefs to shirts and trousers. The 2 bright eyed girls who helped me buy were warm and friendly. Don't think they see many Indians up there. That one week there was busy working beside the boiler among plant workers who were kind and helpful. The nearby local restaurant was great. One of the best experiences of life. There was a magical feeling to this place in Northern Wisconsin. In Chicago, the mind was scrambled. Out here it found peace and calm probably from the work which was plain physical without intellectual exertion, but highly satisfying. I believe some sparsely populated places give one these feelings.

drewb

post/username combo

Hans Anders

I somehow completely missed The times article on the power plant. It was reported widespread in Russian channels back then, and always was more realistic than the Russians shelling themselves. But it still boggles the mind that they really did that. With fucking missiles.

Mark Ames

I do bar mitzvahs and weddings too.

Xi

Sending some legit thoughts and prayers for John with all that he's been going through. Hope you get better sooner rather than later.

Christopher Price

Once I was on a bus from Seattle to Vancouver, which involved us disembarking from the bus, going through customs and then back onto the bus. I got through and decided to take a bathroom break. When I got out the bus was peeling away and I had to run after it with a bunch of mounties chasing after me. The bus finally stopped and I was able to explain things to the mounties who were almost annoyed as me about the bus taking off without making sure everyone was on board.

CR

I almost forgot: John, that gun channel you saw on YouTube. Your description seems pretty close to Ian, aka Gun Jesus, from Forgotten Weapons. That's a good channel. He's as nerdy about guns as you are with the wars they're used in

Kendall

A reference to The Fall AND J. Richman in the span of, what, 60 seconds? I can only handle so much coolness, John. Great episode—I have been out of the news loop for a spell and hadn’t been following about China-brokered ceasefire. Good news, of course, and it also delivers that small hit of Schadenfreude to imagine the seething in Washington over it.

Jimothy Realname

I would believe 50k Russian casualties, but there's no way in hell Ukraine only has 16k. They've gotta be double russia's at least. According to the leaks, Russia is presently outshooting Ukraine 20:1 in artillery, and Ukraine is running critically low on shells. In a war like this, most of the casualties come from heavy weapons. Most of a platoon's firepower comes from machine guns, most of a company's firepower comes from mortars, most of a battalion's firepower comes from artillery, and so on. Over half of the military casualties in WW2 were from artillery, and 60% in WW1, so I figure a *modern* trench war is probably pretty close. And Russia is shooting 20 shells for their every one. No precision guided wonderweapon can make up for that disparity. The Russians have been pummeling Ukrainian positions for over a year now, and Ukraine's ability to respond has only worsened. But they aren't giving any territory without a fight, so that means they're spending lives to keep territory. Conversely, the Russians are using disposable prisoner mercenaries (along with a lot of artillery) in Bakhmut, so they barely count as casualties! I can't help but think the Ukrainian army could be near collapse. I don't think the west is going to expend all of our stockpiles just to keep them in the fight, so they'll have to subsist on a trickle. The Russians will keep wearing them down, and they can't last forever. Certainly not in a trench war against an enemy with 20 times the artillery.

a clash of purple

As RWN says over and over and over again, not all armies react to taking casualties the same way. I don't know how many men Ukraine has been able to mobilize, but unless their forces are actually attrited out of existence and literally everyone is dead or wounded, I wouldn't say that they're "near collapse" just because of losses. And maybe they are on the verge of having their forces wiped out in detail. Like I said, I don't know. But I think for Ukraine, suffering casualties is only going to harden their resolve right up until the bitter end. I think everyone fighting for Ukraine right now is fully committed and willing to die, though maybe that could change later. So no matter how bad their casualties are, it's not going to make much difference (again, unless their casualties are so horrendous that they just run out of people).

a clash of purple

Matt Taibbi is just a strange person. He seems like he wants to be a serious journalist that people take seriously, but also a gonzo Hunter S. Thompson renegade truth-teller, but also make a lot of money and get invited to rich people parties. One person can maybe do one of those things at a time, at most. You can't have a personal friendship with Elon Musk and be his courtier while also trying to have some kind of dignity or journalistic integrity. Rich and powerful people expect more devotion from their retainers than what Taibbi seems willing to give. But Taibbi is also willing to damage his own credibility by having dumb spats with people on Twitter and embarrass himself doing interviews that he's clearly unprepared for. But he also wants to have some kind of independence and be the Substack guy rather than attaching himself to one of the big media companies who will protect him when he does dumb stuff. I just don't understand it. If he wants to sell out, then he should sell out. Be Elon's fawning sycophantic Igor who defends his master no matter what and has no shame. Or if he wants to have some kind of credibility and dignity, then stop doing these stupid media interviews and just do journalism. What does he want out of life?

PW

I grew up near the Niagara Falls border and while it got more stringent over the years the only people I know who ever had any issues had prior drug busts in the US system. Then you get pulled over and your car gets taken apart. Other than that they might have you come in to the office if something is expired but you had little kids and no criminal record so they didn't want to waste their time. They're looking for real criminals.

Jon

Some comments on the Russia - Ukraine leak discussion The Russian casualty number is lower in the leaks because the number referenced is specifically KIA, not total casualties. It's still consistent with other official US estimates on that basis Regarding Bakhmut, the city isn't strategically important in itself, but Russia has used it to bleed Ukrainian forces which blunts the counter-offensive. The understrength manoeuvre brigades are a result of Ukraine committing some of those forces to the Bakhmut defence (eg 92nd Separate Mechanised Brigade) and losses of materiel and vehicles which have been lost in the course of deployment and supply for the city. It has therefore served a strategic purpose for Russia.

Ross Kiro-Ward

I see a bit of push back once again over John’s ‘The Russian army is a joke’ comments. While I agree with most that this is wrong, especially when considering we tend to forget just how much support Ukraine is receiving from basically the entire world, I can see what John is trying to say. From what I can tell John has many things going on at once - health, travel along with visa stuff - and I don’t think he has the time to go trawling through every detail like most RWN listeners. This isn’t to say he doesn’t take it seriously or isn’t doing his job, so to speak. I don’t mean to presume either, but he is probably at an age where any war seems ridiculous, which, of course is entirely correct. On the other hand I see Mark becoming a bit more open to the idea that perhaps Russia, while making plenty of mistakes, is not quite as ‘jokey’ as first thought after Kiev and Kherson etc. This is the first time I have heard him mention Rybar which is for anyone not following the conflict on telegram perhaps the most in-depth, accurate and somewhat objective pro-Russian account you will find. In short, no, the Russian army is not a joke and I’m pretty sure a lot of grieving Ukrainian families would agree. As for the leaks I believe they are, like most leaks, based on half-truths. They will probably serve some purpose in the coming months like ‘Well, we had this big awesome counter-offensive planned, but those damned leaks ruined it all.” In regards to casualties, it doesn’t really matter because Ukraine can’t go on the offensive while they keep feeding reinforcements into Bakhmut - so, to the Russians Bakhmut doesn’t mean much on the map, as John keeps bemoaning but Ukraine is making it something so much more than it needed to be. For Russia it’s a gift that keeps on giving.

Jimothy Realname

Yeah, but they don't have artillery. They can barely shoot back!

SB

A sad episode. The whole discussion of Taibbi’s performance at the hearing and with Hasan is pointless. Is this a high school debate club to argue who “owned” whom? Doesn’t matter, as doesn’t matter Taibbi’s personality or his ability to prepare for an attack and to hold a verbal punch. Only facts matter. Taibbi and others, whether we like or dislike their personalities, published important facts about how exactly censorship had been done at Twitter. We knew about it, of course. But it’s still important to see the details documented, especially that their internal censors saw through the fraud of organizations like Hamilton68 and others. What does it have to do with RWN. I say nothing, other than Mark’s pathetic attempts to “show” how bad his “ex” is, who happened to be objectively more successful as a journalist and writer. It is sad to hear “Russian army is a joke” in April 2023 when even most of the staunch anti-Russian voices in the MSM started to begrudgingly admit that Ukraine is losing badly and that the whole NATO is pretty much out of stock of equipment. It is sad to hear how John keeps agreeing with Mark who is, sadly, on his jihad against his other “ex”, who “closed” his paper 16 years ago. I understand that it’s John’s personality to avoid disagreement and that he is going through a difficult time. I wish he could get a break, get a home in Italy to settle, take care of his health and a number of other things. It is sad that I see a non-zero chance that “Russian army is a joke” may end up becoming an epitaph for the War Nerd’s reputation. It’s one thing to be wrong in predicting whether a war would start in a particular fashion. It’s a totally different level of blunder to continue to ignore reality a year later. If RWN was only about Taibbi and Ukraine, I would have unsubscribed by now. But I’m addicted after all these years to great stories, such as the Years of Lead, interview with Bob Parry, Crimean War, Ethiopia, Syria, and many others. It is sad that I now have to “ignore” the nonsense while waiting for the good parts, which I didn’t have to do in the past.

SB

@Jimothy Realname >The Russians will keep wearing them down, and they can't last forever. Certainly not in a trench war against an enemy with 20 times the artillery. I 've tried to make this point several times in the past. This is simple math that doesn't care which team you root for. This is just artillery. Now add air force and missiles, medevac factor, and the picture is even more one-sided. I wouldn't be surprised at all if the current kill ratio is close to 1:20, and the average from the beginning is approaching 1:10. When the dust settles, there'll be a big shock among the people that are capable of facing the reality.

SB

@Magic Mikey Ideology and Western superiority complex is a secular religion that prevents people, even very smart ones, from seeing facts that violate their "religious" beliefs. But reality inevitably catches up with them in the end, and cognitive dissonance is a dangerous state of mind that many will face I expect relatively soon.

Magic Mikey

Slavyangrad is also a good Russian source. There is also a whole western alt-media space that a couple of years ago I would have dismissed as dodgy, shallow and/or bordering on conspiracy theories, but have proved to be good on the Ukraine war and the recent geopolitical changes. For example, they correctly called out the Nord Stream pipeline culprits months ago. The best of that space includes Moon of Alabama, The Duran (especially Alexander Mercouris), Gonzalo Liras Roundtable, The New Atlas, Military Summary Channel. This alt media space often displays immaturity, shallowness and occasionally bonkers ideas. They could really do with some good editors and seasoned critical journalists, but most of those seem to have lost their critical faculties entirely and just mindlessly stenograph NATO propaganda. So they’re the only place to go for actual critical analysis of events. Also, have to mention Scott Ritter, a man with huge integrity and a wealth of relevant analytical experience. If he was a pro-NATO hawk he’d be a regular on all the mainstream media.

Ross Kiro-Ward

I absolutely agree with Mikey. Slavyangrad is great also. I listen to a lot of the alt-media sources as well, but like you mentioned you really do have to take care in what you take on board from them. Some very iffy things are put out there. Unfortunately I have to say that I can’t stand Gonzalo Lira; he has a faux-intellectualism that I just can’t get over. But that’s just my opinion.

Jimothy Realname

I even heard Ukraine is running critically low on elan. it isn't good for them

Boobs123

Mark's bitterness over being thrown under the bus is understandable—his career as a journalist was destroyed, while Taibbi has gone on to enjoy immense success. Still, it's pretty sad that his way of dealing with it is to echo bad faith mainstream criticisms of Taibbi that you can get from a million accounts on Twitter.

Mark Ames

when you're sad, I'm sad.

Hana

As a London resident and British citizen I could not agree more with your loathing of the British. And yeah, it just means English really in this context. You don't even have to leave the landmass (not even to Ireland) to fall over evidence of English imperialism's parasitic, compulsive, staggeringly cruel pettiness. We're about to crown a fucking king while the Bank of England tells us we must accept being poorer and none of our streets are ablaze. In fact a fair few will be decked out with union jack bunting bought by people who can't pay their gas bill. We're a bizarre and fascinating people and we are doomed.

JoR

Even if RWN is completely wrong about the performance of the Russian army, I can't see any reality that it becomes even a blemish on their reputation, let alone a death blow. Even assuming the Russians are in a great spot as you say(dubious assumption), a majority of listeners aren't gonna jump ship over one bad prediction, when they've been spot on about topics like Iraq/Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, and Libya. Not to mention the historical coverage you mentioned.

Isaac Suárez

Matt Taibi exemplifies how badly social media poisons even solid journalists. I’m glad y’all dealt with this issue- it’s good to have some perspective behind baseball (sadly we live in a media environment that rewards intellectual dishonesty and theft with clout.)