Radio War Nerd #266 — January Wars Roundup: Tigray, Team Biden, Navalny
Recorded: January 28, 2021
We take a break from historical war stories to make some sense of the miserable present tense: war & repression in Ethiopia's Tigray province; Team Biden & imperial stagnation; and the recent unrest in Russia over Alexei Navalny's arrest.
Total time: 1:35:04
Comments (26)
how is the fsb guesswork holding up after the ukraine invasion?
I just started a course on "cyber security", and the lecturer referenced an article by Luke Harding. I thought the name sounded familiar, so on a hunch I looked up the old Guardian apology. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/russia.lukeharding1 Long story short, they still have the mention of an apology up, but the apology itself has disappeared.
Thanks for this! I've gone back and screencapped via waybackmachine. Looks like it was changed sometime between Nov 11, 2020 and early December 2020, ie just after the elections, whatever the hell that means: https://web.archive.org/web/20201111202417/https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/02/russia.lukeharding1 There's no bottom for The Guardian these days, just incredible.
Alex Navalnys kids go to elite schools in the US. His henchmen meet with Mi6 agents to ask for millions of dollars. Mark can pump Navalnys tires all he wants. I'm not impressed with him at all
The late Alex Nekrrasov says that Navalny is a double agent. Either way, it's all one big dog and pony show between the special services
Sorry for my previous uniformed comments regarding Tigray, I saw it trough the frame that people hated Abiye's past as a signal opps guy
What was the book Mark mentioned? Something about corruption in the Harding / Coolidge era in the USA?
"This Was Normalcy" by Karl Schriftgiesser.
The quote is Oscar Ameringer, of the Oklahoma branch of the Socialist Party: “politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other.”
That's the quote, thanks. Much better than my choppy half-remembered version. Schriftgiesser is pretty snotty about the Socialists and the Populist/Farmer party, seems to be one of those Hofstadter types right down to the fancy German name, but he managed to gather some amazing quotes in his book.
The Inauguration of Joe Biden is beginning to sound like the title of a Philip K. Dock novel!
He’s the robot president from The Penultimate Truth
I’m very curious to learn more about Johns dalliance with heroin
Didn't Otto Hapsburg get into a fight with Ian Paisley on the floor of the European Parliament?
Thanks! I didn't know that at all.
Can someone give me the title of the Ethiopian revolutionary book he mentioned? Having a hard time finding it.
Wore Negari, by Mohamed Yimam
What was the book Ames mentioned about Coolidge and Harding?
I believe it was “The Ohio Gang,” which I need to read
Holy shit John, I think you must've moved ten times in the time I've lived in one apartment.
Moved ten times *and gotten the bubonic plague*
A few years ago an Austrian tour guide cracked an Austrian joke to our group to the effect that Austria's greatest triumph on the world stage was to convince everyone that Beethoven was Austrian and Hitler was German.
The Khomeini/Scooby Doo analogy made me laugh but I don’t get it. Please explain
I don't get it either. Khomeini spent decades developing a juridical framework for revolution, then used judges and the militias they set up in the revolution to seize power. An interesting and frightening mix of ideology, strategy and vision.
W/r/t Ethiopia some important elements which were missed: the Sudanese are now trying to reclaim territory on the border and that appears to be a new conflict that will require Abiy to commit financial/military resources. Egypt is quietly watching the situation and looking for an opportunity to renege/reformulate the dam deal. Another thing, prior to November Abiy was in the midst of a market liberalization drive, he was going to privatize telecoms, some textile factories in Tigaray and some other state owned assets. Some estimates say there are 7 billion dollars in state owned assets, primarily managed by high level TPFL party members (with rampant corruption ofc). Western press is probably on the quieter side as they are hoping for a swift resolution and then can swoop to buy assets. IMO this war is about centralization of power for carrying out privatization and Abiy wanting to reconstitute the settler imperialist past. It’s about obliterating TPLF now and resubjugating the uppity minorities in the south. Since Abiy has thrown multi-federalism out the window, both TPLF and the Oromos now speak openly of self determination and national liberation. This will be a protracted multi-decade conflict and considering that Tigray is 4x the population of Syria, is already prone to droughts, plus our climate catastrophe future..you get the picture
And, just like that, the day you all release the episode focusing on the oresent, Myanmar undergoes another coup. Never fails lol