Daniel Ford's blog

Putin's growing pile of corpses

Stéphane Séjourné, the French foreign minister, believes that in a little more than two years of war in Ukraine, Russian casualties have already reached half a million. "Russia’s military failure is already a fact," he told an interviewer from Novaya Gazeta Europe, a refugee Russian newspaper now based in Latvia. "We estimate that Russia has suffered 500,000 military losses, including 150,000 dead. And for what? ... for nothing."

The French estimate is even higher than Ukraine's, which as of yesterday put enemy casualties at 473,400 killed, wounded, and missing in action. Not all are Russian nationals, however. Wherever possible, Putin sends Chechens, other ethnic minorities, foreign mercenaries, and conscripted Ukrainians to die in human wave attacks on Ukrainian positions.

If you have the stomach for it ...

Brett Stephens on the rapes of October 7 (the New York Times today)

How Israel became the bad guy

Younger Granddaughter is a senior at Yale, and one of her best friends is Jewish, so I can understand why they might shrug their shoulders at the keffiyef-masked thugs now holding their campus hostage. For four years, they've been told that the world is a place where we Americans, Brits, and other westerners oppress the weak, at home and in the outside world, wherever we can get away with it. It doesn't matter that Hamas came across the border to rape, tortur, murder, and kidnap two thousand or so Israelis in order to provoke a war in which Gazan civilians would suffer. Israel is western! It's a prosperous, tolerant, liberal democracy and the homeland of a faith that emerged in the Levant 2,500 years ago -- a thousand years before Gabriel visited Muhammad in his Saudi cave.

No matter! Israelis are seen as colonizers, and Palestinians as colonized, whether in Gaza, on the West Bank, or in Israel itself. Anna believes that, and probably her pal Hannah does as well. What else would they believe, given what they've they heard from the their professors since their first Zoom class in September 2020?

Four more years!

Q: Do you condemn the antisemitic protests on college campuses?

THE PRESIDENT: I condemn the antisemitic protests. That’s why I’ve set up a program to deal with that. I also condemn those who don’t understand what’s going on with the Palestinians and their — how they’re being —

Q: Should the Columbia University President resign?

THE PRESIDENT: I didn’t know that. I’ll — I’ll have to find out more about it.

Sounds like a plan!

A coalition of faculty and staff at Columbia ... called for faculty to boycott commencement activities unless the school meets a number of demands ... includ[ing] removing city police from campus, reinstating student groups that have lost official recognition because of prior protest activity, divesting itself from companies tied to weapons manufacturing[,] and offering amnesty for students and faculty disciplined for their recent protest actions.

Better late than never, I suppose

He may look like a 9th-grader, but Mike Johnson proved yesterday that he's one of the few adults in the US Congress. (Think of Jamaal Bowman, D-NY, who not only pulled a fire alarm to delay a vote but claims he thought it was a door-handle!) Mr Johnson's backbone is even more impressive since he was earlier opposed to aiding Ukraine.

Kudos also to the Democrats who made up for the Republican Clown Caucus voting against Ukraine and what we used to call the Free World. Let's hope that they'll also support Speaker Johnson if Chief Clown Marjorie Taylor Greene tries to unseat him.

It's not that I particularly care for the specifics. The total is impressive enough -- $60 billion! -- but less than $9 billion of that is for ammunition and missiles.

And another milestone was reached yesterday: Russian Mediazona and BBC Russia have compiled 50,471 names of Putin's soldiers killed in the war against Ukraine. The number is certainly higher, meaning that Russia has lost more men in Ukraine than the US lost in nearly ten years of fighting in Vietnam.

For a few hours, we did everything right!

While the good people of Dearborn, Michigan, scream "Death to Israel! Death to America!", Iran made a good stab at providing the former, sending hundreds of drones and missiles to overwhelm the "Zionist regime." What a hoot! Almost all were shot down by the most astonishing display of Allied skill and backbone on the part of the Little Satan, the Big Satan, Britain (semper fi!), France (really!), Jordan, and a member or three of Trump's Abraham Accords. Yes, one Israeli child was hospitalized with serious injuries, but Iran's savagery and Israel's humanity are highlighlighted by the fact that she is not only a Muslim but a Bedouin Arab.

Of course Joe Biden couldn't maintain his display of courage for more than a few hours before begging Israel to "take the win." Don't hit back! Would he have said the same to America on 9/11/2001? Probably. As firn defense secretary Robert Gates warned us ten years ago, Joe Biden has been "wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades." We can now make that five decades. And if, by accident, he gets something right, he'll reverse himself as soon as the first antisemite hits the street in Dearborn MI or Cambridge MA. Death to Israel! Death to America! Vote for Biden!