Are we being played?

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Pilot Stand with Ukraine.

The link isn’t that important, it’s just like everything else in the media, and not just mainstream.

On FOX this morning they spent about 20 minutes on a Ukrainian couple that supposedly just got married and then immediately joined the Army to defend their country. Nice wedding pictures with the family and church, followed by pictures of them in uniform and deployed manning various weapons, including a Dragon anti-tank missile. which is pretty impressive for a guy who can’t have had more than a couple of hours training. Especially with the distraction of having a photographer following the couple everywhere they go.

So, we are being shown “Red Dawn” but it looks a lot like “Wag the Dog” to me. I’m just waiting for the video of the woman running through the rubble clutching her baby that looks a lot like a bag of groceries.

So, who is playing us and why?

Published by Don Tabor

I am a former Chairman of the Tidewater Libertarian Party and was the 2007 LP candidate for the 14th district VA Senate. Previously, I was the Volunteer State Director for the FairTax. I am married 50 years with two grown children and 5 grandchildren.

Published

55 thoughts on “Are we being played?”

  1. So, Putin’s genius little war is backfiring in his face so you conclude we must be being played? Countries at war have always tried to control the narrative. Putin has failed in his efforts to do that. Zelensky is succeeding and you people can’t stand it.

    I suppose when a known murderous gangster dictator launches an unprovoked and illegal war on a peaceful and non-aggressive democracy we should be scrupulously neutral? If we take sides, we are being played?

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    1. OK, so it’s alright for us to be manipulated so long as in what you see as a good cause.

      The ethnic Russians in the Crimea and Donbas might differ with your evaluation of Ukraine’s peaceful and non-aggressive nature. There are no good guys in this, just competing oligarchs.

      But manipulation of the US population is a separate issue from the war over there regardless of the relative degree of evil of the sides.

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      1. There is no manipulation going on. That you see that ignores the rhetoric on State owned TV in Russia.

        The media is all over the country covering as many angles of the invasion as possible. If you don’t believe what you see from US news sources, start watching those which will make you feel better.

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      2. Manipulated?
        Some of us are easy prey for manipulation and some are not.

        Your spin that Putin is some sort of liberator as he grabs pieces of neighboring countries shows very clearly which category applies to you. Same conclusion when you see these events as merely battling oligarchs.

        Putin has been pushing the envelope of acceptable international behavior for years. He thought he could do it again with a quick and easy military punch. As Trump put it, he was going to grab an entire country at the cost of $2 in sanctions. Quite a bargain!

        Well, he was wrong. This is a strategic blunder of historic proportions based on underestimating the will of the Ukrainians to resist and the statesmanship of Zelensky, Scholz and Biden. As I opined the other day, Putin will be lucky to get out of it alive.

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        2. “And you think backing Russia into a corner is a good thing.”

          No, I like Russia and Russians. They have been great contributors to science, technology, literature, dance and the arts. It COULD be a great country.

          But Putin is not Russia any more than Trump is America. He is a pothole on Russia’s road to liberal democracy. Punishing him for waging aggressive war is a good thing. That we can lead the world in extracting that heavy price without going to war is a good thing. Whatever bad things for Russia happen because of Putin’s dictatorship is on HIS head. Hopefully, the pain he is inflicting on his own people will lead to regime change.

          But once again, the obvious sympathy for this fascist thug in Trumper circles is noteworthy.

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          1. You’re projecting again.

            Everyone knows Putin is a thug, and I have labeled him as such for years.

            But that does not preclude accurate evaluation of his actions. Lots of thugs are also patriotic. Stalin and Hitler were patriots. Nationalistic pride is a part of his motivation.

            In any case, trying to envelope Russia in NATO is going to set him off, and not recognizing that is asking for disaster.

            BTW, I concur in your assessment of the Russian people.

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          2. This invasion is not about patriotism, any more that Jan 6th was about patriotism.

            It is to feed the ego of a thug that wants his legacy to be he re established the Old USSR.

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          3. In part, though I would say he wants to restore the Russian Empire, not the USSR.

            The fear of a NATO country on his border is also a large part.

            But again, so what?

            Whatever is in his heart of hearts, he told us quite plainly what he would tolerate and what he would not. If we weren’t willing to go to war over it, why do what he told us HE would go to war over?

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          7. “We placed Jupiter Intermediate range missiles in Turkey”

            Yes, that was not good. But those missiles were removed in 1963. That was 59 years ago. Is that all you got?

            There are plenty of ways that Russia could have negotiated NATO behavior more to its liking without starting wars of aggression against its non-NATO neighbors. With its rich energy resources and ability to deliver them to Europe it would have had a strong bargaining position. Putin never chose that path. Because whining about NATO is a pretext. Not a cause. The cause is Putin’s personal desire to reconstitute the USSR.

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  2. “So, who is playing us and why?”

    The same people that fall all over themselves to show us stuff like you described, as well as the pediatric cancer ward that had to be moved to the basement of the hospital while conveniently ignoring those human interest stories when it is our bombs, or those of our clients, hitting hospitals.

    When an official enemy does it, it is ghastly and wrong. When we do it, “well its a very complicated situation really, and let’s just not talk about it, you support the troops, right???”

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    1. Not always, but the truth usually comes out when our military screws up. It may take a while but often a nosy, persistent MSM will uncover the coverups.

      That is why it is so important to counteract the mantra of “fake news” by those in power. In Russia, that can get a person killed. So far, we haven’t knocked off too many journalists. Not for lack of trying by the right to encourage threats by freelancers via “enemy of the state” labeling.

      Nothing is perfect, but so long as the most dreaded words for bad actors, private and public, to hear are “some folks are here from 60 minutes and would like to talk to you”. You don’t get much of that in an autocracy.

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        1. Yeah, I know you hate MSM unless it is FOX. But, like I said we aren’t perfect, but a lot better than last century. Hearst? Remember his yellow journalism? And power?

          We have it good now. You can research whatever you want in minutes. If you don’t like one medium, you have dozens of real other ones with boots on the ground.

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          2. We and the rest of the free world. Putin cannot be allowed to march in sovereign nations because he wants an empire.

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          3. Since when is a former comedian an oligarch?

            Your assessment of this entire thing is based on the fact you believe that Ukraine is as bad as Russia when it comes to corruption.

            Your assessment is hogwash!

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        3. Like I said, our press is not perfect.Never has been and probably never will be. Lament all you want, it is still much more open, transparent today than ever, particularly since we can check, cross check and dig deep into thousands of sources.

          If that is not good enough for you, I am sorry. Find a major nation that is better and compare.

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      2. I think you may be giving them too much credit. In the end, they always support power. Remember Colin Powell got his start trying to cover up the My Lai Massacre, then knowingly lied about Iraqi WMD to get that whole thing going. And when he died, there were no shortage of MSM hagiographies about him.

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        1. I believe Powell later acknowledged his mistake.

          Our press is still pretty robust, if for no other reason the number of outlets and the internet. And yes, I know that many are owned by a few large companies.

          Of course that means little to folks who will not leave their echo chambers and also rely on social media for news.

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      1. A bit convoluted?

        I would bet that if Len, or Adam, or I had posted such nonsense you would be a little less gentle. Mr. Roberts is an adult. Why not level with him? Coming from you, it might do some good.

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      2. RE: “Seems a bit convoluted…”

        Agreed. The simplest answer to your question is to just refute it; to believe that no one “is playing us” and there is no reason to believe we are being played.

        But that doesn’t match the experience we are having.

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        1. If you want to believe we are “being played”, have at it. But if you have nothing to back it but speculation and conspiracy, keep it to yourself until you have something concrete.

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  4. If you were in Zelensky’s position, the narrative has to be optimistic, patriotic and heroic. He and his countrymen are fighting for their very survival so inspiration is critical.

    It may be that there is some exaggeration, but Western media (and FOX) are saturating coverage. Whereas Russian media is so restricted by threats of imprisonment for not supporting the war it is hard to discern what the populace sees.

    We were played, however. Lots of people were duped by the narrative from Russia that the Donbas region was suffering so much. The fact is that Russia started the incursion in the small SE regions 8 years ago. This was obviously just laying the groundwork for today.

    Putin knew full well that NATO was no threat to Russia. But he wanted the glory of Soviet days on his watch. Ukraine and Moldova are his last chances without actually attacking EU or NATO nations.

    My guess is that Putin has surrounded himself with loyal sycophants who would rather give bad, but acquiescent, advice than contradict him. For example, did anyone outside of Russia and its admirers, really think Ukraine would greet the invaders as liberators?

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    1. RE: “If you were in Zelensky’s position…”

      Zelenskyy looks like a CIA stooge to me. I can’t prove it, so take the accusation for what it is worth.

      I simply note that the Ukrainian resistance cannot be successful without CIA/U.S. special forces support.

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      1. Special forces has been training Ukrainians for years to help bolster their defenses after Crimea was stolen from them in 2014.

        If you can’t prove the accusation, why even make it? If nothing else, Zelensky has more balls than most politicians, male or female.

        And their militias are real patriots, unlike…

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      2. RE: “Special forces has been training Ukrainians for years to help bolster their defenses after Crimea was stolen from them in 2014.”

        I’m glad you know that. I’m not sure that that history is an obvious good thing, but we shall see how things play out in the coming weeks.

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      3. “If you can’t prove the accusation, why even make it?”

        Come on, Len. Be fair. If these people could not make baseless accusations that they pull out of their derrieres, they would not have much they could say.

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  5. Ukraine appears to me to have been in political crisis since the dissolution of the USSR in 1991. It never has had a lengthy stabilized government but instead has teetered back and forth between Russian and western influence in government. If it leans toward Russia, Europe panics, if it leans west, Russia panics. The lead up to current events was the ouster of Yanukovych who wanted closer economic ties with Russia vs the EU and Russia saw that as a threat. The Donbas region is 40% ethnic Russian while almost 75% speak Russian as the primary language.
    While I don’t condone the invasion at all, the demands of Russia that Ukraine profess to be a neutral nation fits the narrative. Perhaps in hind sight, letting Donbas secede to Russia would have prevented this war. In the big picture it’s all very complicated but in my eyes, Ukraine is very poor but has been a puppet/pawn nation for both the EU and Russia to quibble over.

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    1. The political instability in Ukraine that you refer to is almost entirely the work of Putin.

      It is easy to forget that this is not the first time that Russian military has illegally entered Ukraine. They did so in 2014 to seize the Crimean Peninsula and they have been doing so continually in the border regions ever since with Russian soldiers and mercenaries playing the part of Ukrainian separatists.

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      1. I would submit that both the EU and Russia have had a hand in their government’s instability.. If Cuba had a pro-US government and regions of Cuba were 40% American while 75% spoke english, the president was ousted in a pro Russian coup and Americans were under fire, wouldn’t the US do something? Oh wait, short of invasion ee already did.

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      2. RE: “I would submit that both the EU and Russia have had a hand in their government’s instability.”

        Yes. Up until current events, Ukraine has been a money-maker for disinterested third parties. Just think Hunter Biden.

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          1. I dont think many in this forum or other venues takes what you say seriously. Don’t flatter yourself.

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        2. As one with Ukrainian blood, I say to you you are full of shit. The instability in Ukraine can be put firmly in the lap of one Vladimir Putin.

          The current Zelensky government was democratically elected by a majority of people in Ukraine who were tired of being corruptly tied to Putin through his puppets that had been there before.

          Trying to tie Hunter Biden into this whole thing is just another distraction and “word salad” to cause confusion and ignore the realities of what is going on: Putin invaded a sovereign nation because his little dick felt stepped on when the Berlin Wall fell and his ego needs to be fed by attempting to re establish a failed USSR. That is not mind reading; that is taking his own words at face value. Paraphrasing – The worst thing that ever happened was the fall of the Soviet Union.

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          3. “And yet Burisma’s oligarch owners were pretty much able to call the shots in Ukraine’s foreign policy.”

            LOL! Any evidence for that?

            Never mind. It is a rhetorical question. The answer is obvious. No. Just another one of your constant – I will be polite and say – made up “facts.”

            Ukraine’s foreign policy was to seek closer economic, political, and cultural relationships with Western Europe. That policy arose from the Ukrainian people because, you know, people are attracted by freedom and prosperity. And repelled by fascism and poverty which was ALL that Russia has EVER delivered to the Ukraine.

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