Archive for August, 2008

Happened across this:

GEORGIA: Russian T-62 tanks?

Are those T-62s? Do some front-line units still use the T-62? Or are these more likely Category 2 or 3 units?

If you’re reading this, you are on the new site.

Things are still under construction, but I’m expecting greatly increased performance (on both your end and mine) and working comments.

There is currently a fair amount of IE weirdness. (What else is new?) I will be working on that and much more in the coming days.

But why take chances? Make the switch to Firefox!

Here are a few pics of what are described (by South Ossetian television) as Georgian tanks:

It’s tough to know for sure which burned out tanks belong to who. Everyone has what appear to be various flavors of T-72s.

More below…
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M. Simon thinks the Russians might be in a bit of trouble, and he also thinks they’re now “tied down” with a possible naval blockade of Iran about to begin.

All of that seems like a bit of a reach to me. Probably more than a “bit.”

However, I’ve also been wondering if the fall back strategy was the Georgian playbook from day one. For all of Russia’s fast and merciless advance, we’ve not seen any Georgian prisoners, have we? There’s also talk of an effective anti-tank weapon (possibly Israeli in origin) that has scored well against Russian armor.

Someone mentioned to me that the Russians were looking pretty awesome, and I replied that the Detroit Lions beating the crap out of a Pee-Wee Football team wasn’t going to convince me that the Lions were awesome. Russia probably has more troops and tanks that it has lost track of in inventory for the week than Georgia has on active duty. Russia’s advance shouldn’t surprise anyone.

Is this all, however, part of someone’s bold master plan? Personally, I doubt it at this point. I wondered the same thing about Israel in 2006 and that turned out to be, well, not exactly the case.

That being said, someone’s bold master plan that was transparent enough for Murdoc to figure out a week in would be pretty weak.

UPDATE: Meant to link to and comment on this: Russian tanks head deeper into Georgia

Georgian officials claim Russian tanks entered Gori, beyond the border of South Ossetia. The Russians denied it.

To the west, Abkahzian separatist forces backed by Russian military might pushed out Georgian troops and even moved into Georgian territory itself, defiantly planting a flag and laughing that retreating Georgians had received “American training in running away.”

The developments came less than 12 hours after Georgia’s president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France.

Here’s a screen grab from an NBC news video:

The news report also showed a bunch of military vehicles apparently abandoned by retreating Georgians, including artillery. Not what you’d expect if the retreat was a planned fall-back as part of a larger plan.

UPDATE 2: A more recent post by M. Simon: The war is over in Georgia and it looks, from the oulines of the peace agreement that Georgia won.

In mobile positional warfare what you want to do is to draw the opposition in an untenable position so that you can deliver a counter stroke when he is fully extended. Draw out the supply lines and then attack the enemy’s rear where he is the weakest and his supply lines are the most vulnerable. Avoid smashing into the spear head. Break the shaft.

My take is that the Georgians had done that and were about to deliver a counter stroke. What do you do at such a point if you want to keep looking good in the world of public opinion? Declare victory and prepare to beat feet.

Okay, I’ve got limited access to hard information on what’s really happening in Georgia. Maybe I’ve been totally spun by the big bad media or something. But I’ve got to say that I don’t read the current situation as one where the Georgians were about to “deliver a counter stroke” that would “break the shaft” of the Soviet military.

When a commenter pointed out that no one else in the blogosphere seems to think that the Rooskies got whipped, M. Simon replied

The Bsphere is too much in thrall to the idea of the all powerful Russians. They were about to lose their Army. They said no mas. Not the actions of a winner.

Folks, Murdoc is not “in thrall to the idea of the all powerful Russians.” Murdoc just doesn’t see any evidence whatsoever that the Georgians were really on top of things. Able to score against the Bear? Sure. Maybe (probably?) even more than most would have expected.

But winning? I just don’t see it. though I wouldn’t mind being totally wrong about that.

Like everyone else, I’m having trouble getting my comments to post. So here’s a response to this comment left on the post where I advocated a military response to Mexican troops entering US territory and drawing weapons on the US Border Patrol.

Just curious, but if US military or LE persons were to be caught entering Mexico illegally in a similar manner, (mexico’s law of course) and an ensuing fight killed the Americans, what would you say then?

Response: To be clear, a very large part of my reasoning here is based on past action (and inaction) on the part of the Mexican military and police.

If the US had a de facto policy of assisting illegal border crossers (including criminals and drug dealers) and a corrupt system that encouraged illegal crossings, with a history of aiding the criminals to enter Mexico illegally to do illegal things, with many examples of doing nothing to help secure things, and THEN American troops entered Mexico and pulled guns on Mexican authorities, I’d say the US troops were fair game.

But that’s not at all what we’re talking about here, and everyone knows it.

If, on the other hand, Mexican authorities appeared to be honestly doing the best they could, even if it wasn’t terribly effective, and they had a history of going out of their way to help our government stem the flow and had always been very conscious of the border and the situation and THEN Mexican troops crossed the border and pulled guns on our Border Patrol in an honest misunderstanding of some sort, I’d say it was probably an honest mistake and let’s clear it up and move on.

But that’s also not at all what we’re talking about here, and everyone knows it.

Oil prices dip again on signs of waning demand

Great. Now investors are paying less, and the only reason they have is that they think the price won’t go up as much. Can’t those guys just keep paying the same price all the time?

Say Uncle notes a recent story in the LA Times about how US automatic weapons are supplying the Mexican drug gangs blah blah blah.

He writes:

You know what would stop the flow of weapons in? Border control.

Crazy talk.

Recall that a couple of weeks ago I noted an MSNBC story that reported “bazookas” had been used by the gangs.

Are those also flowing over the border from the US?

Olympics Opening Ceremony Fireworks ‘Faked’ on TV

The Telegraph picked up a story in the Chinese newspaper the Beijing Times which explained that filming the 29 firework “footprints” from the air would have been impossible. So visual effects artists spent a year creating a computer-graphic simulation — inserted precisely at the same time the real fireworks went off — to bedazzle home viewers as if they were at the actual ceremony. The fireworks themselves were real enough, but if you were watching on TV, what you saw was a CG simulation of that reality, happening in real-time.

Also: Olympic opening uses girl’s voice, not face

A 7-year-old Chinese girl was not good-looking enough for the Olympics opening ceremony, so another little girl with a pixie smile lip-synched “Ode to the Motherland,” a ceremony official said–the latest example of the lengths Beijing took for a perfect start to the Summer Games.

A member of China’s Politburo asked for the last-minute change to match one girl’s face with another’s voice, the ceremony’s chief music director, Chen Qigang, said in an interview with Beijing Radio.

At this point, assume everything was faked.

UPDATE: Oh, and don’t forget the landlocked aircraft carrier, either.

Yes, I’m aware of the ongoing issues posting comments. It seems to be a bit on-again, off-again. But mostly “on-again.”

About a month ago I decided that drastic action with the site needed to be taken, but I haven’t been able to commit any amount of time to it until this week.

I’ve got two options that I’m investigating right now, and if testing tonight goes well on option #1 I’m hopeful that I can have the site migrated to a new set-up by the end of this coming weekend.

Again, I apologize for all of the problems you guys are having. If it makes you feel any better, I have just as much trouble posting as you do commenting. My recommendation is that no one upgrade to Movable Type 4 if they’re on version 3.x. At least not if they host at JaguarPC.

UPDATE: Holy crap! This post went through on the first try. I don’t think I’ve had that level of success for at least two months.

UPDATE 2: Predictably, the update celebrating success…failed.

Kat on Argghhh!!! asks Why Not Ossetian Independence?

And also notes Ukraine Angst

Murdoc’s guess is that heavy Russain aerial bombardment is not going to do much to convince the Georgians that they don’t want US defense systems.