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naraburns  nihil supernum  2yr ago (text post)   Edited 2yr ago   34788 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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An extremely unlucky coincidence is more probable than intentional Russian strike, or Ukrainian provocation though. Putin is a trickster, and a manipulator, yes, but he won't get anything by striking Poland, the only far-fetched explanation (that it's an "off-ramp" that would allow him to justify withdrawal from Ukraine) I think we can dismiss. Also some pro-Russians push the version that it's an attempt of Ukraine to draw NATO into the war — I too find not credible. Mostly because American GEOINT and MASINT is quite advanced, and with American help Poles won't have trouble to piece together what exactly happened.

I think we should look at the event holding this thought — that in a day, or two, or maybe a week NATO will know precisely what happened — whether it was a Russian missile, or a Ukrainian AA missile, or maybe both (e.g. if Ukrainian missile intercepted a Russian missile, and they both fell on those poor farmers). And I think Russian, Polish, Ukrainian and American authorities understand this. Kuleba already said that it wasn't a Ukrainian missile

https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1592633235754057728?cxt=HHwWgIDQqazflZosAAAA

if he lied, or even was misinformed, Ukrainian credibility will take a hit. At the same time, Russians are no strangers to lying (think of their behavior during MH17 events), so they'll say "it wasn't us" either way.

EDIT: Remember the Ukrainian airplane that Iran shot down (what an irony)?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ukraine_International_Airlines_Flight_752

Americans leaked that it was Iranian AA the next day, on Jan 9th. And they were monitoring Iranian airspace in the aftermath of Soleimani just as they monitor Ukrainian airspace now.

if he lied, or even was misinformed, Ukrainian credibility will take a hit.

The one thing I have found consistently weird about the entire Western perception of this conflict is the universal mass-amnesia of the fact that Ukranian and Russian are birds of a feather. I personally tune out everything that comes from the mouth of a slavic leader as an obvious fabrication, and wait for the independent corroboration of events.

I don't think it's fair. When an American politician lies, Americans blame him personally (or maybe his party, like "GOP always lie"). On the other hand, when someone not from the US lies, the blame is put on culture like in your case "post-Soviet leaders always lie, it's because the culture of mistrust yada-yada". I guess it's sort of outgroup homogeneity?

Are you sure on your probabilities? If they are actual farmers the farm even a small size would be like 10 acres. Maybe 5 humans on a family farm? Your talking about 1/1000+ probability that a missile hitting the farm would kill someone.

Now if a missile fell in a suburban housing project maybe you have a 20% chance it’s close enough to kill someone. But on a working farm?

I think it's probable that it might be more complicated than just "a missile fell on a tractor", but rather it was due to some false positive of a guidance system. Still it doesn't mean that it was intentional. Kinda similar to my theory of COVID-19 — it might be a lab leak, but not an intentional release in order to [decimate Chinese/Americans/old people/enter your reasoning here].

Well I also thought maybe Poland added some flair to the missile. But yes on a big farm it seems improbably a missile just happened to hit the tractor humans were in.

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