Everything Old Is New Again

Today is the 81st anniversary of the bombing of Kiev, as part of the invasion of Ukraine.

My mother was living in Kiev at the time, having been born four months before. Fortunately, my grandfather managed to help arrange her and my grandmother's evacuation to Siberia, where they spent the war. (He was working in war production around the Urals, being a 43-year-old engineer.) Now, a lifetime later, we're watching Ukraine under attack again, though, again fortunately, from far away, our family having left there on June 13, 1975.

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes."

Comments

[John F. Carr]

I feel a better understanding now of the WW2 battles I formerly knew only as names and dots on a map. And the area seems much smaller now that I know you can drive a modern car from Ukraine to Moscow in a day, war permitting. I have driven plenty of 500 mile days, albeit on better roads. Back then if you drove a group of tanks 500 miles most of them would break down or get stuck along the way.

[DaivdBehar]

Why are we not learning from these catastrophic failures? Instead of bustin' a $trillion in glass, and killing tens of thousands of working people who just want to go home, try eradicating the lawyer immunized heads of states and their oligarchic puppet masters. In the case of Putin, the richest man in the world, he is the oligarch and the head of state. That makes everything simple and easy. Only the lawyer dumbass cannot see what everyone on the bus and in the diner finds self evident. All future war efforts should focus on attacking the real causes of these catastrophes. The delusional, crazy lawyer should be swept away to end its obstruction. It should be the official war policy of the United States. Of course, such intelligent efficiency would shrink government budgets, military corporation rent seeking, and lawyer fees. Vets who have been damaged should visit these traitors.

Lawyers are dangerous, lethal idiots.

[DaivdBehar]

If crime is the biggest civil failure of the vile, toxic lawyer profession, war is 1000 times bigger failure. Get rid of the vile lawyer, and start being rational in government policy.

[DaivdBehar]

The military embedded lawyer who stopped a 4 star general from authorizing the bombing of the limousine convoy of the Taliban head of state should be named, arrested, tried, and summarily executed for treason. It should be a military policy to backhand the face of such a lawyer, then to repeatedly kick him in the ribs until he can STFU.

[BravoCharlieDelta]

Seeing what's happening there makes me wonder who the real bad guys are.

Globohomo needs to be defeated, they are evil evil people.

[Ed Grinberg]

Putin & Co.: "No!!! It the people we're bombing who're the Nazis!"
(They sure sound like Antifa, don't they?)

[Krayt]

The dictatorships learn the rhetoric the west's own power hungry use to override standards or "work around" the Constitution.

Putin is now threatening to execute captured US citizens fighting for Ukraine. Reason?

"They are non-combattants according to the Geneva Convention, and so deserve no such usual protections."

You were warned of this. It happened again. Patter from both parties is learned by the world, and not used for whatever theoretical purpose the west blathers, but for stepping on their own citizens' faces a little harder, a little more forever-er.

But sure, let's try outlawing cybersecurity without backdoors, because our own rulers need to catch prosaic crime, and also aid dictators in making sure the faces of their stepped on have permanent marks from the sole mold.

[Martinned]

True. The US Supreme Court said in Ex Parte Quirin that executing POWs is OK as long as you call them unlawful combatants. The Russians are just following that example.

[Frank Drackman]

Those Ukrainians can't get along with anybody.
Tell me again why I'm supposed to care.

Frank "America Fust!"

[mydisplayname]

The rhyme is often a rap to which we are deaf. "For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest -- but the myth -- persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the cliches of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought."

[While many points made in the quoted speech have, well, resolved themselves in ways the speaker might not have wished, I do agree that "It is true -- and of high importance -- that the prosperity of this country depends on the assurance that all major elements within it will live up to their responsibilities. If business were to neglect its obligations to the public, if labor were blind to all public responsibility, above all, if government were to abandon its obvious -- and statutory -- duty of watchful concern for our economical health -- if any of these things should happen, then confidence might well be weakened and the danger of stagnation would increase. This is the true issue of confidence."]

[Milhouse]

My late father remembered the bombs falling on Kharkov as he and his family were on a train headed for Saratov. That was in October 1941, and he was 9 years old. The journey to Saratov should have taken 3 days, but took 30.

The family were able to get on that train because my grandfather was an anti-aircraft gunner defending the city. When the city fell he left on foot, and managed to make his own way to Saratov on a horse-drawn wagon. He said all the gentile soldiers simply removed their uniforms and stayed in Kharkov, having no reason to fear the Germans.

[Ridgeway]

"He said all the gentile soldiers simply removed their uniforms and stayed in Kharkov, having no reason to fear the Germans."

Probably a bad call.

[Martinned]

For the newer VC readers wondering about that quote: http://www.volokh.com/posts/1108756279.shtml