Radio War Nerd EP #445 — World of Wars: Spanking the Nazi, Amateur Poet Assassin & Allied Failure
Recorded: May 16, 2024
The War Nerd logged on from his layover in Doha to discuss the latest in war news: Robert Fico's retiree-assassin, Israeli incompetence, NAFO leader's death camp gooning & Ukraine's failures accelerate...
*Robert Fico's pensioner-poet assassin, Juraj Cintula
*Vatnik Soup nazi Pekka Kallioniemi's cumuppance memes
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Total time: 1:19:40
Direct link to this episode's mp3 here
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Comments (26)
I pay good money to hear stories about you almost getting stomped by the night wolves Mark. Sorry to be obnoxious about it but I really want to hear that story.
Mark, can you elaborate on what you meant by Pushkin making more sense in Russian?
I assumed it's just that poetry doesn't translate well between different languages. It was very briefly discussed in one of the episodes with Aamer that the Quran (or parts of it) are written in rhyming verse, and to really "get it" you have to read it in the original Arabic, or maybe even hear it recited. The whole genesis of the War Nerd Iliad was that Homer doesn't translate easily into English, so you have to get creative to capture the intended spirit of the work.
There is that one screencap of a ukrainian govt official on tv slipping up and going "on the northern front we stole I MEAN INVESTED 20 billion hryvnias" or whatever
Oh is "vatnik soup" a reference to that AFU guy who boiled a severed head in the field Oh come on I've been to Sachsenhausen what a fucking freak Send him to the trenches
If you want to hear something really terrible, check out Anthony Blinken's own songwriting on spotify. It's under the name Ablinken and i feel like it explains a lot about the state department elite class
This episode art brings back memories of old eXile covers
In my ameateur head I can only wonder how much Israel's Syria "policy" in the last decade potentially lead to their complete unprepardness in Gaza. You always read stories, from Israel too about their open support for the Syrian sunni resistance. Shelting wounder soldiers, the air strikes. God knows what type of covert support. Inevitably that had to have helped the Gazan resistance, which was mostly pro resistance in Syria (I think?). I can easily see Israeli intelligence helping the Palestinians in these situations, potentially directly, or at least indirectly. You would also imagine some Palestinian leadership gained a lot of direct experience in Syria fighting the SAA and other militias, as opposed to being trapped in Palestine itself. Would also fit the general narrative of these intelligence agencies not seeing 10 yards in front of them. "who cares about the Palestinians? Assad must go at all cost!"
“Weighed down by ideology” is a great way to explain how Ukr and the west are losing this fight. Also funny how putin is seemingly recreating the soviet union as economic circumstances push him to take more bureaucratic control
"Losing this fight" might be a bit of an overstatement. Keep in mind, both NATO and Russia's original assessment was that Ukraine would be totally occupied by Russian forces, which is why NATO's aid early on was geared towards a hypothetical insurgency campaign. Ukrainian forces have already drastically overperformed on the battlefield. But also, what is Russia's strategic goal in Ukraine? For Ukraine to "lose," Russia would have to "win," and I still have no idea what Putin wants out of this war. It's only due to blind luck and the resourcefulness of his ministers that the Russian economy wasn't destroyed after the invasion. But I don't think they'll be able to, say, occupy all of Ukraine, and even if they did I have to assume it would be an unmitigated disaster; another years- or decades-long counter-insurgency debacle that results in a lot of death and destruction and a lot of profiteering by the worst people in the world, with no benefit for Russian national interest. And if Putin makes peace now, or soon, then what? Can he keep up the war economy without a war to justify it? Would the West end sanctions, or are those permanent? I'm genuinely asking because I don't know. My mostly-joking suggestion for Putin would be to make peace in Ukraine and then deploy Russian troops to Palestine as a peacekeeping force on behalf of the United Nations. Enforce the UN's rulings against Israel, force them to recognize the internationally-sanctioned borders, arrest Netanyahu and his regime and bring them to the ICC, etc.. It should be fairly easy. The Israelis clearly can't fight, unlike the Ukrainians, and Russia would have global opinion on their side in that conflict. Plus, being the world's policemen can be a very lucrative job; just ask the U.S..
How did the resistance forces defend their tunnels from flooding?
As I understand it, it’s not one big tunnel complex, but a system of tunnels. So you may have to surface somewhere to access the next tunnel.
Whoever called the hit on fico an “archduke Ferdinand” moment needs to be put down for their own safety, and the safety of everyone around them. My god how far we’ve fallen
At least it wasn’t a Munich reference…
"a lot going on here" as the kids say
Sachsen = Saxon in German, pronounced the same way
"He looks like a 300 year old vampire who hasn't lost a step."
One of those John lines that sticks in your head forever
Doggerel of the South!
On the flight diversions, when I flew from Perth to Lisbon last year via Dubai, the plane made a diversion to the south to avoid flying over Israel, flying over the Sinai peninsula and the Nile delta instead.
Fico stopped giving arms to the Ukraine "for free". He did not object to Slovak arms companies selling their weapons there: https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/slovak-pm-fico-no-obstacles-private-weapons-exports-2023-11-06/ https://www.politico.eu/article/in-post-election-reversal-slovakia-enables-weapons-exports-to-ukrainef-fico/ As for him being an opportunist - in 2017 he wasn't anti-EU: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSKCN1AV1YX/
Is gooning the pathway to fascism?
There's a video of Finkelstein saying exactly this
Beware the Sumatran rat monkey in New Zealand https://youtu.be/_frVHCLECNQ?si=13CrwIpCavhkwYL1
Lol re Tony Blinken and his shitty covers - I would love to play this (keep on ROTTing in the free world) for the DNC (look up the lyrics - amazingly prescient for 1996(?)) https://youtu.be/cVtYgIakUFE?si=-4T0oMhI4EuHnpWy
Breaking new ground with this one