Malcolm Nance, intelligence analyst and MSNBC talking head, joins the fight in Ukraine

Originally published at: Malcolm Nance, intelligence analyst and MSNBC talking head, joins the fight in Ukraine | Boing Boing

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Your move, Tucker.

Hell - join the Russians if that’s where your putative heart is.

It’s what a manly man with well tanned testicles would do.

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For reference, Nance is 61 years old. To join one of these modern-day versions of the International Brigades at that age indicates a major commitment to his ideals.

For all the fascists’ talk of only “real” (read right-wing) men being capable of taking martial action, at the moment it’s the defenders of supposedly effete and decadent liberal democracy who are actually jumping into the muck like Nance is.

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I’m sure Tucker will be “just asking questions” about this later.

“How do we know the Nance isnt just using his press credentials to help move the child slaves to a more secure place for the democrat-nazi cabal to force their will on them and teach them about CRT? I’m just asking questions!”

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He is a Philly guy. My Airy neighborhood.

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That’s why Tucker should join the Russian Army. He can bring a portable testicle tanning unit.

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I don’t watch cable TV and I’m not on Twitter so I’m not familiar with the guy, but based on his Wikipedia entry I sure hope he conducts himself better than he did when he worked as a military contractor in Iraq.

To his credit he publicly acknowledged that the torture that he was a part of was wrong, and worked to change government policy on that. Still, though. He did do torture…

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This is the new “It was a dark and stormy night.” Mr Tingle surely has Tanned Testicles on T-Rex Island in paperback by now.

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On the UFL:

On April 1, 2022, Ukraine announced that recruitment will be temporarily halted in order to sort out volunteers who don’t have any military background.[36] It was also announced that Ukrainian citizenship can be awarded to volunteers who are expecting to have their original nationality stripped away due to violation of their country’s laws.[36]

Would the US strip Mr Nance’s citizenship for fighting in Ukraine?

That’s being outsourced to Eric Prince it seems.

In addition to the US-NATO military investments in Ukraine, there is the $10 billion plan being implemented by Erik Prince, founder of the private US military company Blackwater, now renamed Academy, which has been supplying mercenaries to the CIA, Pentagon and State Department for covert operations (including torture and assassinations), earning billions of dollars. Erik Prince’s plan, revealed by a Time magazine investigation, is to create a private army in Ukraine through a partnership between the Lancaster 6 company, with which Prince has supplied mercenaries in the Middle East and Africa, and the main Ukrainian intelligence office controlled by the CIA. It is not known, of course, what would be the tasks of the private army created in Ukraine by the founder of Blackwater, certainly with funding from the CIA. However, it can be expected that it would conduct covert operations in Europe, Russia and other regions from its base in Ukraine.

Source

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On the other hand it seems a 61-year old would be more of a burden than an actual help to the Ukrainians. A similar thing was true of the International Brigades – while Orwell may have been useful for later generations to know how Stalin sabotaged the anti-Franco fight, he was pretty worthless (even by his own admission) in actual combat.

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That is all entirely correct, everybody should stay home and wait for it all to blow over.

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I’m good with that, actually.

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Life expectancy went up about thirty years between when Orwell was born and when this guy was born, so it’s not really comparable.

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I’m not saying that – just that the people who ought to be volunteering should be fit people in their twenties with military experience. These are the people who actually are useful in combat.,

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60 might be the new 30 as they like to say, but even if you buy that (which I don’t, being 52) a 30 year old still is an oldster on a battlefield.

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In ancient Athens men were required to serve in the citizen military until age 60. The “Greybeards” regiment of Iowa (active during the Civil War) was made up entirely of men age 50–70. And these are just two examples from times and places where human life expectancy was decades shorter than it is today.

The idea that any soldier over the age of 30 is going to be more of a liability than an asset is simply not borne out by history.

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In the 20th century and beyond these people weren’t generally used for actual combat use though. When faced with enthusiastic yet aged volunteers, modern armies steered these people towards roles at home organizing civil defense, running recruiting offices, and working in hospitals.

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Ah, but you’re discounting the power of age and treachery. A 60 year old operating on little sleep because he can’t get comfy on a cot is going to be one pissed off mother fucker.

But seriously, Nance has intelligence credentials including terrorism and asymmetrical combat in Iraq and Afghanistan. He certainly has the experience to help Ukraine pull off a insurgency style tactics as the Russians dig in and take up defensive positions. Just like the US did in Iraq and Afghanistan. And unlike that example Ukraine actually has trained fighters and more advanced weapons.

Just because he’s on the news posing with a rifle (with an empty chest rig) doesn’t mean he is going to the front lines. But he could still be a valuable asset given his experience.

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You could have just said “expendable kids.”

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He was an experienced officer, and for every guy at the front, they still need commanders, logistics, transportation, communications, analysis, liaison with the Ukrainian regulars, etc. Even a slightly irregular force needs supply clerks.

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