Not only a well crafted speech, but impeccably delivered. My respect for Arnold has gone up about six notches. Sometimes when an actor is elevated to high office you get Reagan. But sometimes you get Ah-nold. A Republican I can actually respect.
He had some interest in running for president, but of course isn’t qualified under the Constitution, which in order to ensure total loyalty in such an important office requires the candidate to be a native-born American. So instead, in 2016 we got a demented criminal Russian stooge elevated to the American presidency.
An employee of the Gomel Regional Clinical Hospital told the newspaper that as of late last week, more than 2,500 corpses had been taken from Belarus to Russia by rail and air.
Another source from among the medics told the newspaper that “about a hundred Russians underwent surgery in Mozyr on Sunday alone.”
Apparently, the wounded are now being brought not only by PAZ buses with a red cross, but also by helicopters. “The wounded don’t stay long there. They get ‘patched up’ here and taken to Mozyr and Gomel. Corpses are shipped by rail from Mozyr to Russia,” city residents report.
These will be casualties from the north of Ukraine. Casualties from the east – Kharkhiv region has seen some particularly heavy fighting – would be taken directly across the Russian border.
Yep, like Italy in 1940, waiting until (France in that case) was completely on the ropes before sending troops into southern France (where against minimal forces they were pretty much stopped). Led to Winston Churchill’s quote “The hand that held the dagger has plunged it into the back of his neighbor”.
If it looks like Russia has the Ukrainians on the edge of defeat, the Belarus dictator will send a couple divisions across the border to show how he ‘helped’.
This maniac is killing Ukrainian children even his own soldiers over absolutely nothing. Fuck Putin. Somebody needs to assassinate him. I don’t care who, I don’t care how. Seal Team Six? Anyone in the MI6?
It’s all about him. Sanctions will never personally hurt him. Enough money and protection to last decades unless there’s a fantastic kind of overthrow.
I am informed that Putin’s word noises (or a translation of) was heard by a noted gentleman name of Mike Godwin, who then commented that we would never believe whom this guy reminds him of.
My Belarusian neighbor (who is definitely not a regime loyalist, but is a broken-hearted patriot, if that makes sense) says he has been “very carefully” talking to friends and family back home — first to make sure they’re safe, and second to get a report on what’s going on. He says things are “very quiet,” no protests, everyone staying home and close to the news, just waiting for whatever’s next.
He also says that people inside Belarus have the same belief that has been reported as rumor in the West, that overtures were made to the military to join Russia’s invasion, and everyone from the middle-ranking officers down “rejected” (his word) the plan. While he cautioned that nobody he knew had solid proof of this, he did say that it’s the general belief of regular Belarusians.
I asked how the military can simply refuse an order in an authoritarian regime. He said Lukashenko’s hold on power is somewhat precarious after the last couple of years, and that he’s relying even more heavily on the stabilizing influence of the military’s strength inside the country, so it would be risky to alienate them. He’s in a bind between Moscow, which views him as a puppet and puts demands on him, and the military that effectively keeps him in power, which is happy to ally with Moscow but doesn’t want to be reduced to their mindless cannon fodder. Normally in a situation like this, he says, Moscow would just move tens of thousands of troops into the country for “exercises,” as a reminder who’s really in charge, but Ukraine is such a crippling distraction that this isn’t happening, which means internal Belarusian politics are more important than would be normal.
They’re also aware that if the Russian political calculus changes and they decide to abandon the Ukrainian adventure, a lot of troops will be retreating into Belarus, which is an unpleasant prospect.
Also, we never hear much from people whose families were on the losing side of WWII. Arnold has always spoken passionately about the damage the war did to his father. This was speaking from a place of empathy for the losing side rather than vindictiveness or anger. I think this is possibly the finest example of his public speaking.
Hate/oppose the responsible government, not the people as a whole.
seems to be in line with “common(?) perception” or reading of what is going on in Belarus…
Ironically an autocrat that now has to treat extremely lightly vis-a-vis his people (and needs to do what is “popular” in his country) b/c he could be overthrown any moment
he is probably also aware that - before long - he might end up in a short video like the ilks of Ceausescou/Ghaddafi/Hussein
I think we will be surprised of things to happen in the next couple of years …
The soviet union imploding was - partially - due to them losing the Afghan war … now think of what this Ukr. war might mean for that neck of the wood (Georgia, Armenia, satellite-states w/in and outside russia etc…) - if russia cannot project any significant power any longer, and what flare-ups to expect next.
Things might not happen necessarily in 2022 but the seeds have been put out in March 2022… I see a lot of potential (if the war should drag on) of a lot of those states to “go-full-italian” and start fighting together with ukr (and themselves) against russia, knowing that russia cannot open another 2-3 fronts in other countries.
A NOW OR NEVER MOMENT for sure!!! (aggravated by the sanctions … The only way for Georgia et al. to avoid being thrown back into a Breshnew-1970 landscape is to become independent (and get help from the west) … I thinks there are lots of talks going on right now on a diplomatic level.
I think it is another revolution forming right in front of our eyes - and we human beings are notoriously bad in detecting those geopolitical earthquakes.
I’ve been thinking about exactly that since this mess started. Another explanation of Belarus staying out of the active fight is that the Ukrainians have put the lie to how “powerful” Russia really is. Belarus has gone along with Russia in part over fears of what Russia would do to Belarus if they opposed Russia.
But now, a lot of people there have to be re-thinking that. “This is the vaunted Russian army? What were we so afraid of?!?”
When your power is based on people fearing you, that power vanishes when they start laughing at you instead.
