Retired Army Col. Matt Dimmick’s op-ed: “Ukraine’s counteroffensive is working. With continued support, its forces will defeat Russia” (Chicago Tribune, August 31) is a masterful piece of propaganda to continue the Russo Ukraine war in perpetuity.
It appears to have been selected for publication to counter two incontrovertible facts.
First, as Col. Dimmick acknowledges in his opening sentence, the Ukraine counteroffensive is failing. Then he immediately pivots to say its “going slower than anticipated – but for good reason.” That reason is preposterous… “slow and steady wins the race.” The “slow and steady” he compares Ukraine’s counteroffensive to, the US invasion of Normandy in WWII, is an analogy as offensive as it is wrong.
Col. Dimmick spends nearly a thousand words trying to convince us that Russia’s military is falling apart while Ukraine is just getting revved up with US/NATO weapons. He completely omits any mention of the unfolding catastrophe in Ukraine being systematically worsened by America’s refusal to negotiate a war that the US could have ended with negotiations in the first 2 months. He implies support for Ukraine is worldwide. That support is limited to NATO and a couple others, less than a fifth of all countries.
Second, Dimmick likely penned his imaginary winning Ukraine scenario aware that a majority (55%) of Americans now want an end to weaponizing another US perpetual war. That is unimaginable to folks like Dimmick who has spent his military career and now retirement championing US exceptionalism worldwide.
It’s also unimaginable to the Chicago Tribune, which never once has promoted negotiations to end a war that will either end in negotiations serving the interests of both combatants…. or will end in nuclear confrontation between the US and Russia.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
They’ll keep on with their propaganda pieces as long as there are goobers who will believe them (a seemingly endless supply).
Matt Dimmick is a lot like the late John McCain and current Senator Tammy Duckworth. They believe in endless wars in which the US and its allies are fighting and endless proxy wars instigated by the US and its allies. They are naturally born bloodthirsty killers.
Any comparison with “Normandy” made by a “military man” is astoundingly stupid. This is not a question of OPINION; it is a statement of FACT. In Normandy, the allies had complete air supremacy over the battlefield; Ukraine does not. The allies heavily outnumbered the Germans in all the meaningful categories of war; Tanks, by something like 5 or more to 1; artillery, ammunition supply, fuel, motor transport (many german formations were largely horse or foot bound), and fresh formations just waiting to be deployed on the battlefield. Ukraine is numerically inferior to Russia, in every category except MAYBE total number of troops available, but heavily inferior in fire support.
The Allies problem was that the battlefield chosen constricted their mobility and didn’t allow them to deploy their numerical superiority – until the breakout, when the allies shattered the overstretched germans, and were able to break out into open country with nothing to stop them until they outran their supply lines.
The Ukrainians problem is that they can not deploy enough trained, properly equipped manpower to effect a breakout through the first line of defense, even after 3 months. They don;t have massive amounts of fresh, well equipped formations ready to shove into a breakthrough; what was supposed to be their “exploitation force” has instead been drawn into the “breakthrough battle”; and even if they could, by some miracle, rupture the first line enought to allow a few brigades to pass through, there are TWO MORE defensive lines to go through, and the Russians have more reserves to commit than the Ukrainians do.
The two battles are Night and Day; and it’s frankly an embarrassment to the US military War College, CGSC, and promotion system that anyone as ignorant, dishonest, or just plain stupid as Matt Dimwit (errr, I mean “Dimmick”) made it as high as Colonel
The primary issue for the Uke-Nazis is that Russia holds a vast air superiority. At some point, the Uke-Nazis will form a cauldron in the south and the Russians will close it and trap what’s left of Ukraine’s “counter-offensive”. That is how a defensive strategy works.
Neocons promoting perpetual war …. nothing to see here. Next story ….