Politics 2023

[Buster's Uncle]

subcontracting out  to a guy with a family of magical child soldiers.

LOVEly, that there is.  No WAY something horrific could go down.

[Buster's Uncle]

Note not irrelevant to the thread topic: China?  I've noticed, over my life, that it is often convenient to our government to be performatively riled up at some foreign entity - Japan, various actors in the Middle East, Libya, North Korea, Russia now, AND China lately and increasingly, w/ varying degrees of case-by-case justice to it, and thereby encourage the media to rile up the public.

I don't know how seriously to take various things the Chinese government has pulled in recent years -a great deal sounds extremely business-as-usual to me- but I'm merely pointing out that there's a domestic politics low-key Wag The Dog aspect that could be advantageous to whatever officials.  Who would care to wager with me that the China-is-horrible war rumblings are NOT at peak pitch late next year?

-This would also be convenient to CCP leaders to play their part right back.  Business as usual.-





(Russia would naturally be a better subject, but THAT appears to me all real, and not to be played with...)

[Buster's Uncle]

Also -Have I ever said this in public?- nobody ever talks about that we were already in a war directly with China in the early 50s.  My dad had to pull a couple rotten Chinese bodies out of a Korean river.

[Geo]

Are you hinting at the creation of a Democratic People's Republic of Ukraine? A bit late, the Russian Federation already annexed all possible parts of it.


Btw, weren't we in fifty-fifty three not also at war with the Soviets? I seem to recall Soviet pilots flying the Mig 15teens.

[Buster's Uncle]

YOU weren't anything, were you?  Was Belgium in on the 'UN peacekeeping'?

Not sure if the many Russian 'advisors' in Vietnam counts.  They were pretending to not be there.  Jarlwolf was almost certainly one of them, you know.




Head to head with the Chinese army not pretending to be anything else, I'm sure counts.

[Geo]

YOU weren't anything, were you?  Was Belgium in on the 'UN peacekeeping'?

Not sure if the many Russian 'advisors' in Vietnam counts.  They were pretending to not be there.  Jarlwolf was almost certainly one of them, you know.




Head to head with the Chinese army not pretending to be anything else, I'm sure counts.

NATO was in it. And a whole infantry battalion from my country.

[Buster's Uncle]

Okay.  Pardon the ugly American.



-Y'know, one can really imagine some high-level phone calls between countries' leadership to the effect of "Let's have a fake feud; you game?"

[Geo]

For a moment I thought you said Jarlwolf might've been in Korea too, but then I saw the Vietnam part. I wonder what he would have said about the current war between Russia and Ukraine. I suppose he's long deceased now.

[Buster's Uncle]

That's my best guess.

He's old enough to remember the siege of Volgograd, so he was probably the right age for a grunt in Korea, but no Russian infantry shenanigans there.  He mentioned once being in Vietnamese jail, and I had a faintish impression he may have been spetsnaz, though he claimed combat engineer.

[Geo]

That would've made him a couple years older then my father. He was born a couple months after my country's occupation started.

[Buster's Uncle]

Daddy was about 10 years older, and was 19-20 when they sent him to Korea.  Hmm. Jarl was bit over 70, ISTR, 10 years ago, which makes him closer to your dad and my mom, a little young for Korea, but we all know Russian infantry didn't sit idle throughout the 50s and 60s, and soldering did seem his primary career....

[Geo]

YOU weren't anything, were you?  Was Belgium in on the 'UN peacekeeping'?

Not sure if the many Russian 'advisors' in Vietnam counts.  They were pretending to not be there.  Jarlwolf was almost certainly one of them, you know.




Head to head with the Chinese army not pretending to be anything else, I'm sure counts.

NATO was in it. And a whole infantry battalion from my country.

Looks like I was partly wrong. In the Korean War NATO wasn't a belligerant. And the Belgian participance was a volunteer battalion.
Still, over the course of the war and a couple years after the armistice over 3,000 Belgians served in area.

[Buster's Uncle]

 

[Buster's Uncle]

...Whadda you suppose they'll do if they lose Mitch?...

[Rusty Edge]

That would put them in a pickle. I don't think his whips are able enough to fill his shoes.

I eventually came up with Lindsey Graham. He has national recognition. He's enough of a weasel to raise the necessary money and suck up to a majority of the senate Republicans. He's a clever spokesperson. He's not as despised as Ted Cruise and Mit Romney.