Running out of weapons while unable to restore our stocks
After a Bank Holiday it’s always very jolly to note the floundering of our MSM when they have to ‘report the news’ without the prescribed spin from government. Since the “sources” and “senior sources” in No 10 and Whitehall have been away for that well-deserved break we’re being served with sob stories or ‘spy stories’. Just check out here the BBC’s daily compilation.
This morning I’ll give you two reasons why I’m shunning the “war reporting” our MSM are splattering across their pages. Firstly, there’s a nice little title, in red even, at the top of the DT’s paper edition this morning, saying that ‘Putin is pressing the PM for prisoner swap’. However, there’s no such headline, never mind an article, in the online edition. Odd, isn’t it!
Secondly, just scanning the pictures the various ‘war reports’ publish online, it’s evident that our armchair reporters use videos constantly published by Russian journalists on the social platform ‘telegram’. They then interpret the images they take from those videos in such a way that the Ukrainians are winning or are at the very least heroic defenders against all odds.
The point is that these writers are accessing Russian videos made by Russian reporters who are embedded with the various Russian military groups. Our MSM hacks surely also have access to machine translators, so they must be aware that they are, weelll, let’s call it: ‘misrepresenting’ the facts. If that’s not a clear indication that they’re feeding us propaganda, I don’t know what is.
We’re also told, yet again, how we and the USA are sending huge numbers of weapons and ammunition to the Ukraine. Anyone who only reads our MSM or watches our TV reports is clearly unaware that on a daily basis Russian forces keep destroying these weapons as soon as they arrive in the Ukraine.
There was an article in Bloomberg last week (link), reporting that the West is running out of ammunition and weapons to send to Kiev. The headline alone is hair-raising:
“Ukraine War Is Depleting America’s Arsenal of Democracy – Western allies face a choice: Send more weapons to Kyiv or save their stockpiles for their own defense.” (link)
“Arsenal of Democracy” – does that mean the USA’s weapons are gentle and good, killing for ‘a good cause’, while Russians and by extension Chinese ones are bad because they’re not from an ‘arsenal of democracy’? How … interesting!
Many bloggers have been analysing this report from a military point of view, such as how much ammunition the Ukraine would need on a daily basis to keep fighting Russian troops. Here’s the latest, by an American. Weren’t we told at the start of this war that Russia would run out of ammunition and fuel within a week? Now, nearly 8 weeks into this war, it doesn’t look as if it’s Russia which has to scrape the bottom of the armament barrel.
Leaving all those calculations to proper military experts there are certain points in the Bloomberg article which deserve emphasising. There’s for example the point that the USA, the mightiest economy of the world, surely can just increase their armament production, correct? Not so fast – see this (my emphasis):
“In the world wars of the last century, America’s unmatched manufacturing base ultimately powered it to victory. But today, replenishing the free world’s arsenal might not be so easy. American economic leadership is no longer based primarily on manufacturing. Shortages of machine tools, skilled labor and spare production capacity could slow a wartime rearmament effort. The U.S. can’t quickly scale up production of Stinger missiles for Ukraine, for example, because the workforce needed to do so no longer exists. American stockpiles of key weapons are smaller than one might imagine, partly because of production constraints and partly because most of the Pentagon’s roughly $750 billion budget goes to manpower, health care and things other than bullets and bombs.” (link)
That can certainly be said for our and the EU countries’ armament production as well. Also, our Armed Forces spend their budget not so much on hardware but on ‘things other than bullets and bombs’, such as ‘diversity’, as we learned a few weeks ago.
There is one more constraint which Bloomberg’s reporter hasn’t mentioned. Thanks to sanctions we, including the USA, simply no longer have access to the raw materials and energy resources needed to produce the sophisticated weapons we’re giving away. I’ll mention one other point: thanks to green crappery, our energy supply is in such dire straits that even if we’re not going on a ‘war production’ drive, we’d have to face rationing, as a certain Lord Frost explained here.
And let’s not even think about how “we” would accomplish all that ‘war production’, rationing included, when three quarters of our civil serpents are still clinging to WFH so that Mr Rees-Mogg wrote
“[…] to all secretaries of state to say they must send a “clear message” to officials about ending the work from home culture and urge them to ensure that taxpayer-funded offices are at “full capacity”.” (paywalled link)
By autumn, when the home energy bills will start to bite, we might see two things: either those WFH civil serpents will demand a ‘WHF heating supplement’ – or they’ll creep back into their offices because they’ll be heated.
And finally, two interesting little pieces regarding Macron. One is a report by RT, on how France is setting up a NATO battle group in Romania, near the border with Ukraine (link). The other is by Reuters:
“French President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday that his dialogue with Russian President Vladimir Putin has stalled after mass killings were discovered in Ukraine.” (link)
One has to feel for that wannabe Napoleon – not! It’s hard to look like a good little NATO poodle on the one hand while trying to play at being a ‘peace negotiator’ on the other, and all that while knowing full well that Putin knows full well what Macron is up to, election campaign included.
I leave you with recommending another text. It’s very long, describing how a Tory warmongering MP, Mr Ellwood, is getting support from Labour and the Left. If you wondered why Labour is for ‘moar war’ rather than criticising the ongoing militaristic adventure of the current PM, wonder no longer: the Left is for war with Russia on behalf of the ‘working classes’!
You really couldn’t make it up.
As if things couldn’t get any worse that twerp who is play acting in the House of Commons pretending to be our prime minister, announced today that he hoped that Britain would play a leading role in the rebuilding of Ukraine once the war with Russia is over. I hope that doesn’t mean that we the long suffering British taxpayer will be saddled with those costs out of our taxes etc. No doubt somebody will claim that it is only right that we put our hands in our pockets to pay for it all as it was British supplied weaponry after all that caused some of the damage to buildings and infrastructure. Hopefully by that stage, that twerp will be long gone and in the big top wearing a large red nose, baggy trousers and oversized shoes throwing cream pies around. Here’s hoping……..
Hello. I am back. Didn’t switch on over Easter. Just read more historical novels.
Also, my central heating broke down and I was surprised that my Lab. controlled local authority had an efficient emergency process for getting it put right during the ‘hols’. Still won’t vote for a main party at election!
Wizzed through all the Betrayals and comments. One way and another I get the impression that the propaganda we are being fed on all issues will backfire. The sheeple are just not as stupid as the propagandists think.
Thank you very much Viv and your team.
Not had a poll card or even any leaflets through my door as yet.
Haven’t faced my inbox yet. Or J.R.’s Diary.
Pauline……John Redwood was on an LBC programme called Cross Question this evening presented by the utterly wet Ian Dale. Just he alone makes my heart sink and like all LBC presenters is too fond of giving his unwanted opinion rather than remaining impartial. John Redwood as one might expect seemed to come over as a supporter of Boris Johnson having to resign, and when asked who he would thought might make a good Conservative leader and prime minister in the event place of Boris Johnson, he said he couldn’t answer it. Hasn’t he got an opinion of any sort when push comes to shove? I hate all this fence sitting. I mean what has he personally got to lose my making an opinion, its not as if he is a current minister and afraid of losing his job. I just don’t get it. We need people like him to have some sort of political conviction.
Well I think you should Flyer 9.46am – get started on GW and Green Crappery, these myths, lies and chicanery cannot be exposed too often the fight back can only come from wide public knowledge and condemnation and without the oxygen of repeated publicity , we’ll get nowhere.
As a further thought there’s a dozen or more items must be similarly aired regularly, I mean root and branch exposure right down to their origins
Northern Ireland for instance, the EU arrest warrant, the role of Minsk and the Azovs in the Ukraine
A bit off topic and I rarely listen to this Youtuber but this is insanity. Apparently now, looking at a woman with the wrong facial expression is indicative of having inappropriate sexual thoughts about the woman: thought crime in other words. Apparently people have already been arrested and even imprisoned for this.
“A senior British police officer says that thinking about committing a sex crime is a crime in itself”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu8Aw3n2DNg
Orwell’s world is already here.
I was thinking of coming back to Blighty for a visit but I think I’ll give it a miss, they’d lock me up and throw away the key.
This is insanity, we’re really are living in the twighlight zone.
“The Conservative Party and the Labour Party are really “two cheeks of the same backside.” On the subject of Ukraine, that’s eminently applicable. And you can throw in the Democrats and Republicans as well — another pair of pimples on the same “arse.” This was the quote which really stood out for me in the Text you posted Viv. I really do hate them all.
At first I thought the Rwanda plan was a small deception, an expensive deal mainly to position the Tories against Labour as tough on immigration. Bad enough. Seems it is off the scale despicable. The cover story is a few hundred leaving the UK for processing. While Rwanda becomes the goto state in Africa for anyone wanting to relocate to the UK. Why trek across Europe when you can check in at Rwanda for a one way ticket to England? And all those dingy people politely boarding planes for Rwanda will need passports and guess what type of passport the Home Office will issue? So how long will they stay in Rwanda with a freshly minted British Passport in their pocket? A very expensive deception to increase immigration while claiming the opposite. The Home Office, Tory Party, the ruling elite call them what you will. How do these people sleep at night when their lives are a daily round of dishonesty?
‘How do these people sleep at night when their lives are a daily round of dishonesty’?
Very well I imagine as people keep voting for them no matter how dishonest they are.
More hypocrisy from Rees Mogg, albeit directed at civil serpents, who has no worries about heating bills.
Shortages already in the supply chain and much more to come and not mentioning the rampant inflation that is about to hit, there will be shortages of wheat, fertilister ( prices already soaring ) so food shortages, Diesel shortages and price hikes, , aluminium, iorn ore, no lithium or other high grade materials, chips and super chips, machine tool parts spare parts for motor vehicles, the list goes on and on, but not to worry the British media will carry on as usual feeding the sheep, Thousands still working from and mask wearing in the open. Things are set to get tight and probably nasty but still we are all aware of of the importance of pro-nouns now.
Norman – good comment. I’ve been reading analysis from various sources and it’s not looking good. Putin has demanded that Russian goods are payed for in Roubles. The Asian countries are trading among themselves and increasingly doing it without the aid of the dollar; indeed, it is now being said that Russia, China and other countries have no appetite for more Western fiat currency that has been printed into oblivion. Why would they?
The above at a time when the West has outsourced most of its manufacturing to China and the Far East, we’re dependent on them for just about everything including medicine and drugs. We’re also dependent on other countries for imported food to feed seventy odd million mouths, currently expanding by many hundreds of thousands a year.
It looks like that as the world realigns – The Great Reset? – we in the West are going to be left out of the loop. So, you are spot on Norman, I don’t think that the penny has dropped with most people, things are going to get very desperate and you ‘aint seen nothing yet.
Don’t even get me started on global warming and green crappery.