I listened to it in this podcast, which should still be free.
Interesting tech, if it wasnât meant as a more efficient killing mechanism.
What is worse than responding to a tragedy with âthoughts and prayersâ? Why, forcing people to listen to your thoughts and prayers when they are busy dealing with their problems:
Christians.
ETA: specifically, American evangelical Christians
sigh
Iâd doubt that, because sophisticated sure. But the Stinger was developed in the late 70âs, and one of the bigger risks to US aircraft in Afghanistan is the Afghans had a bunch. Apparently we supplied a lot when they were fighting the Soviets.
The Javelin is newer, but itâs still a 30 year old system.
Iâm sure there have been updates, but theyâre out there if the Russians, or anyone else, wants them. And they probably know all about how they work. But they canât exactly run out and grab ammo for them, and it really does look like theyâre not good at making this shit in any kinda volume.
Hundreds maybe thousands. I donât think we have tens thousands of these things to send. Maybe on the stingers, cause we use them on a lot of stuff. Not that Wikipedia is the right source for this sort of thing, but they list the lifetime production of Javelins at 40k missiles.
The â5000 anti-tank weaponâ headlines you see are mostly about unguided weapons.
But to get back more to what @gracchus was on about. I think his logistics point is the thing, but in a different direction. Cause these things donât need fuel, or a crew, or much of a supply chain. They donât need a road, or special storage.
Everyone, including the Ukrainians expected this to shift towards insurgency and âasymmetric warfareâ at some point. They still seem to be planning for that, and for it to go on for a long time. These kinds of weapons are absolutely critical to that sort of thing. Flooding the area with them is exactly the idea.
In that context a fighter jet is useless. But this insanely effective, basically artillery. That can be in the back of any and every station wagon in Ukraine is kinda the entire thing.
Thereâs definitely proliferation problems with that. But itâs the bulk, dumb weapons that have caused problems in the past. If you think about just how many Soviet RPGs there are out there and how often they come up.
American âChristiansâ. Double sigh.
Itâs not enough for them to God-bother at home, they have to take their nonsense abroad.
Christ, what assholes.
Most of them just use harassing people as an excuse to get a free vacation anyway. Our shittiest export right after the literal garbage we were shipping to China.
Fuckwits.
Sigh.
Ok, you may be right about the number of Javelins being fewer, but the headline Iâve seen repeated in NY Times, Washington Post and others from a few days ago is âUS and NATO have reportedly sent more than 17,000 anti-tank weapons to Ukraine,â which is a big number whether theyâre the very latest in technology or not.
Iâm not against arming Ukraine for its self-defense in whatâs clearly an unjust war, but based on what youâre saying about a lot of it being older stuff that likely isnât capable of being remotely disabled itâs really sounding like we didnât learn any lessons at all from arming the mujahideen. Who knows who might have custody of these weapons in another few months, let alone decades from now?
If they were there distributing food or toiletries or immigration counseling services for U.S. visas or literally anything that would be be of real use to a refugee I might be willing to cut them a small break on the proselytising. But nope, all these morons are doing is aggressively shouting at these poor Ukrainians, likely in English.
They should really go and do that to some passing Russian troops.
Probably more likely to get a positive result.
If they live.
I have to wonder how many of them sympathise with the narrative of Putin as defender of white Xtianity.
This. White supremacy has become part-and-parcel with conservative Christianity, at least in the âWhite Manâs Burdenâ form, with is, to be clear, flat out racism. The view of Putin as âstanding up for cis, het, white malesâ was well embedded before this started, and is causing some struggles with his fanboys here now.
Probably because they donât have to hold back their true views on certain groups of people when they go abroad.
2 balms on that. 1 the Ukrainians are using these things fast. Weâre sending so many because they seem to perpetually be almost out.
The other is so long as there is a Ukrainian government, and a Ukrainian military in Ukraine that is a lot less likely.
Iâd put money on there being a fair number of Javelins and Stingers in all that equipment we abandoned in Afghanistan. And the Russians have equivalents to all of it, that theyâll sell in volume to anyone who asks. Legally or illegally.
So at least owing to those past mistakes. The cats already out of the bag. Sadly. While thereâs a lot of tragic humanitarian shit involved in that proliferation in places like Syria. Otherwise itâs mostly been something thatâs bit our own imperialism in the ass.
Outside of warzones it comes up less often then youâd think, and when it does it doesnât tend to be all that American made stuff thatâs floating around.
Itâs not exactly a happy thought. But itâs how Iâm dealing with what is really depressing catch 22.
And well before that the line was Putin and Russia as the last defenders of White Christian Europe from a Muslim invasion. I can remember the Stormfront crowd being hot and bothered by how butch the post Soviet Russians were way back in the late 90âs. And that was the big thrust from Russian propaganda and the European far right during the pre-Brexit ârefugees are eating our childrenâ push.
Way back before the alt-right coalesced, even your pickup artists and misogynist movement were totally fixated on Russian and Eastern European women as âpureâ and âtraditionalâ in very we wonât specify racial and religious way.
IIRC there are white supremacists who lust after âtraditionalâ and âobedientâ Asian women and, being racist, tie themselves up in knots justifying it to themselves.
Then there are the Chinese men who fetishise Ukrainian women (and did so long before the war).
Couldnât they just delete some old files? /s
âYouâre reaching your storage quota. Please consider upgrading your plan by not being an imperialist fascist dickhead.â
