The Ten Hardest Truths About the War in Europe

[Danascot]

Long but informative piece by Seth Abramson. I had trouble excerpting a couple of paragraphs as representative so I've listed the ten points he uses as an outline.

(1) America is now in a world war.

(2) If Donald Trump again becomes president in January 2025, America will lose the war we are currently in with Russia and our democracy may collapse.

(3) All this is complicated by the fact that what we’re witnessing is the start of the second genocide in Europe (cf. Bosnia) since the Holocaust.

(4) No one in the U.S. government, NATO, or the European Union believes Ukraine can win this war.

(5) The fact that Russia can stay in Ukraine long-term—and can weather sanctions long-term—underscores a key indicator that we are in a world war: global alliances are already shifting dramatically in response to the crisis in Ukraine.

(6) The costs of the current world war may well be more than Americans are willing to bear—and if a majority of Americans come to wrongly believe that it’s President Biden rather than Vladimir Putin and his allies (very much including Donald Trump) who’ve brought the world to its current pass, they’ll punish the Democrats and reward the Republicans. Yet doing so would play into Putin’s hands.

(7) Putin has no exit strategy.

(8) The Biden administration is in denial about much of this—either deliberately or negligently.

(9) Yes, America’s “culture war”—launched by Republicans as a cynical rhetorical exercise in the 1990s, but ultimately reified as a discrete, personally and politically profitable phenomenon—is relevant to the ongoing war in Europe.

(10) Everything now happening is only the beginning.

https://sethabramson.substack.com/p/the-ten-hardest-truths-about-the?s=r

[byronius]

1. The 'sensible path' to avoid nuclear conflict will probably result in mass death.

I mean, it's all good for our bacterial overlords. But if we don't stand up and punch this motherfucker in the face hard like we just don't care, we stand to lose a planet.

I read too much history to think the sensible, logical path is anything but overt cowardice in the face of looming devastation. The hard truth of Russian history -- and certainly for the ones that remained after the wall fell -- is that the worst of them are monsters and the best of them are cowards. That's descriptive of humanity in general but concentrated in Russia. They're not going to remove Putin. Won't happen. Best intentions and all, but give up on that one.

Every moment we delay means an order of magnitude increase in the death and suffering that's coming. This it It. Our Crisis. And when I see the most powerful leaders vacillating -- 'national interest', and 'wait for the sanctions' while the baby bodies pile up -- I know we've all forgotten the Lesson. None of us alive have personal experience with that lesson, but it's in the books. It's real.

You stand up now and punch the bully right in the face, hard, sixteen times. Flatten the Ural Mountain hideout. Use whatever secret technology you have to cut the legs out from under this rising beast, right now, today.

Or Else. Life is always a gamble. I could certainly be wrong.

But I'm not.

[HUAJIAO]

12. YOU ARE RIGHT 100%.

The Russian friends I have, both still in Russia and ex-pats, are ALL saying the same thing.. WHERE IS THE WEST?? WAKE UP !!!!!

[flying_wahini]

2. The scary one is number 7. 6.8.10. Well, all of them.

[Scrivener7]

3. But CAN Russia weather sanctions long term? With full import and export ability, they

have an economy that is smaller than the economy of New York State. And 59% of their income comes from oil and gas.

How long can they go on their own?

AND I seriously doubt that the majority of Americans will turn toward Putin and away from Biden.

[Elessar Zappa]

4. I take anything written by Abramson with a grain of salt.

[BGBD]

5. This

How can anyone who lived through the past 6 years and come away with anything other than the opinion that Seth Abramson is hyperbolic.

I can't even count the number of times that he turned loose with some 15 tweet thread with all of this information that never came to be.

[mopinko]

7. me too. and that we are now in a world war is a declaration that requires some back up.

not that it couldnt become one, easily. but it's a stretch to say we are there.

[mitch96]

8. +1

[Mr.Bill]

6. I disagree with #8.

Biden knows exactly what he is doing. You may argue he's not doing the right thing, but he has surrounded himself with knowledgeable people that he listens to. That's what makes him different than the likes of Putin or Trump. No one is in denial.

[PortTack]

9. Taking a hard pass on this...I usually agree with him, but no...not this time

[Kaleva]

10. Same here.

[lapfog_1]

11. This guy is a moron. Always has been.

An attention hound... so he write over the top screeds to garner clicks.

[sciencescience]

13. These things could happen, but Seth didn't lay out convincing evidence to say he knows they're the

truth.