Genealogy / Russian POW Camp records [71]

If your grandfather was not an officer, it is likely that he was filtered through camps and ended up within the GULAG system.

If he was an officer, he was likely executed at Katyn, Kalinin or Kharkov.

This Russian organization maintains a database for persons that been in the GULAG system:

memo.ru/ru-ru/collections/archives/structure/

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


Russian involvement in Iran is probably one of the biggest blunders of Western foreign policy.

Iranians hate, hate, hate Russians. We carved off a good third of their country. All of modern Georgia, modern Azerbaijan, modern Armenia, parts of Dagestan and of Chechnya.

It's their equivalent of China's "Unequal Treaties", and a source of deep national humiliation.

Then we invaded them twice during the 20th century (last time in 1941). We supported Azeri and Kurdish separatism. Ran campaigns aimed at undermining the idea of an Iranian national state. And then finally acted as the primary supplier of weapons for Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War.

Like the Turks, they have a genetic mistrust towards Russians - and view it always as a potential enemy.

To mistreat Iran to such a degree that it runs into Russia's embrace, you need to be a real stable genius, or just Israel's lapdog.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


This is why I said the elected civilian governments run "99% of day to day life".

Things like garbage collection, policing, healthcare, education, and so on.

The Supreme Leader legitimates this entire rule through his person. He sets and shapes the whole ideological climate - through his Friday sermons, and through his power to control key appointments in the judiciary and the media.

Technically - he is able to intervene in every corner of Iranian life. He can overrule the president. He can directly intervene in the lawmaking process. He can nullify or allow nuclear agreements. In practice - however - this has been an increasingly rare occurrence.

His meddling in Iranian domestic life is probably at its lowest level since the late 1990s.

What he and his IRGC buddies are obsessed with is their Axis of Resistance - which is all outside the country, and completely unaccountable to the civilian government of Iran. But all these machinations with Hezbollahs, Houthis, and Hamas' has no bearing on life in Iran itself. There's a huge Chinese wall between these things. In fact, there's a great deal of hypocrisy where Iran promotes much more aggressive strains of thought abroad, in comparison to what it is prepared to tolerate at home.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


This is a matter of record, to the level of birth certificates.

Israelis are happily living on land that Palestinians had been expropriated from within the lifetime of their grandparents.

Like the Ukrainians, they have renamed cities (which carried the same name for a thousand years or more), renamed streets, reclaimed temples, and razed family plantings going back generations - all in the name of some historical fiction to which no one has any relation.

Fanatics. Zealots. Dangerous people.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


Yes they mostly employ Englishmen to do the managerial work, and Banglas, Pakis, and Indians to do the rest. Very nice carryover from the Raj.

You forgot to mention the Arabs that are flourishing, or at very least have no foreigners to do all the work:

1) The Lebanese

2) The Tunisians

3) The Algerians

4) The Morroccans

5) The Egyptians - a very large country, and very poor, but because of its enormous size - a country that definitely has more talented people than say - Bulgaria.

Lazy Hejazis that do no work, and sit on an ocean of oil are not representative of all the other hardworking Arabs out there.

Off-Topic / Is Islam a threat to western society? [221]


Wtf.

This is not an immigration problem. It's a Polish problem. Where are your balls and where is your heart?

In Russia, Muslims are quieter than the brook, lower than the weeds.

In Russia, Muslims do not dare question Orthodoxy.

We are the only people in the world with orthodox Christian Muslims.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


A myopic view.

Iran's interest, in this case, is Poland's interest.

If Iran loses - then this is not good for Poland. It would also be a serious additional argument for why Poland needs to develop nuclear weapons.

Poland is a natural partner for Iran. It's a great potential market for Polish exports. Its people are the most well-read and educated in the Middle East. There are historic ties between Persia and Poland - that I'm sure you yourself are aware of.


I'm not here to argue, and prove to everyone that nobody can be smarter than Bobko. But if these facts had changed your view, or made it more nuanced - these are things I want to know.

I'm against obscurantism. I want knowledge to flow in all directions, and I think this will make our societies happier.


Richard is the uncontested genius for laying out complex thoughts in simple terms. I am not graced with the same talent as Mr. Mazur. It takes me a longer time to get my point across.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

Nobody responds to Bobko posts :((

Law / Zloty lifts Poland's Economy [58]


Another believer in a Polonocentric model of the Solar System.

Why should the other states bend over backwards, for the great honor of Poland joining the Eurozone?

What's the benefit to Germany, of Poland in the Eurozone?

I've never lived in Poland, but imagine Poland already invoices everyone it trades with in Euros.

Nobody has to go looking for Zloty to pay Poland. They just pay Poland in Euros, and Poles go and bring this money to their national bank to get back Zlotys - used to pay taxes and buy goods inside Poland.

There is literally zero difference for the other EU member states when it comes to what Poland decides about the Zloty. The economy is big, but still small next to Germany's.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

The weakest and most inconsequential player in this whole picture is Iran's pathetic army - the Artesh.

They have been completely neutered, with their balls sliced off.

They don't have an opinion about anything, and no one asks them for one.

Their funding is a fraction of the funding of the IRGC, and they have no businesses they own which they could use to create patronage networks.

Just good old military people, that don't care neither about Israel nor about nukes.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

So having established that the Ayatollah Khamenei is not in favor of nuclear weapons, but rather wants to stay just below the threshold to maintain strategic ambiguity - then who does? I'm not sure, but let's go down the list.

Radically anti-Zionist civilian governments. One has to note that there is not one in power right now.

Hardline members of the IRGC. This I'm less inclined to believe, because these guys have the most to lose. Some experts estimate the amount of businesses the IRGC controls in Iran is such that the annual revenue exceeds $20 billion. Why would these guys try to destroy the goose that lays the golden eggs? Iranian sepoys are not stupid.

Fringe clerics with radicalized bases. This is more... concerning. It is known that Iran's establishment has trouble on both ends. From liberals, and from hardliners. At the moment the liberals seem to be mollified, and instead the hardliners are in ascendancy. Thanks to what? Thanks to Israel's unprovoked attack.

How does the Ayatollah ward off hardliners? By becoming more hard line himself. He's done this in the past by helping Ahmadinejad into power, and then regretted it bitterly.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


You keep going on and on about Mullahs, but all it shows is how uninformed you are about modern Iran.

Ayatollah Khamenei is THE NUMBER 1 REASON Iran still does not have a nuclear weapon.

He has spoken extensively about the immorality of nuclear weapons, and has placed a fatwa on their development. The Revolutionary Guards, and the civilian foreign ministers always reference the Ayatollah's fatwa, when arguing why they are not weaponizing.

Iran has a complex society. It's an Islamic theocratic democracy (if you can imagine such a thing).

It has a civilian government, which is elected and runs 99% of normal day-to-day life. It is these democratically elected civilian governments which have been sometimes problematic, not just for the West but even for the Ayatollah. None more so than the government of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Hanging gay people from cranes, whipping young people for immodest dress, kidnapping people off the street for other perceived moral vices - this is what Ahmadinejad was all about. After a while, it really started grating on the Iranian population. Then it exploded into nationwide protests that lasted a year, following an election that was suspected to be rigged against Moussavi - the moderate opposition candidate.

The leader of the opposition, in many ways, was not Moussavi but another Ayatollah, of quite moderate views. The Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri. It was the most real threat to the Islamic Republic since its founding. The so called Green Movement, was a backlash against the extremism of Ahmadinejad, and his policy of permanent confrontation with the West.

Eventually, Ahmadinejad's downfall was orchestrated by the Ayatollah himself. He has since spoken about the dangers presented by radicals, and has been a good partner to the much more moderate governments of Raisi and Pezeshkian.

Nobody remembers Ahmadinejad in Iran anymore, except to curse his name.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

I take it back - I don't want them to be destroyed, but it would be nice if at least they disabled them to the extent where they can't occupy the Golan Heights and Southern Lebanon Willy-nilly.

That would be nice!

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

I hope Iran will destroy Israel.

For you history nerds above, that discuss why Iran and not Persia...

The word "Iran" though ancient, was brought back into the popular milieu by the Ilkhanid Mongols, under a grandson of Hulegu.

The Ilkhanids (who were opposed to our Mongols - the Golden Horde, on account of their pitiable Islamism), were the first to apply this supranationalist label to this geographic territory. To make it easier to control. The later Timur's, Saffavids and Qajars found it useful and continued it.

If Europe has the Peace of Westphalia, then the East has Genghis Khan - that set most modern boundaries.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]


Preemptive strikes worked fantastically well in Iraq and Libya.

Saddam and Ghaddafi are dead - and there are no more problems in the world since.

Jokes aside - this is exactly what Mr. Donald Trump was elected on.... He is breaking his promises.

His staunchest supporter - Steve Bannon - says there will be a showdown within MAGA over this bullshit.

He says - Israel is "Israel First", and we should be "America First". I agree with the guy.

No more eternal wars.

News / The Iran war and Poland [826]

I noticed Iran has been hitting Israeli targets with much greater efficiency and accuracy these past 24 hours.

If it's not the Iranians putting themselves back together, then I hope it's Russia and China offering support.

Iran just lost its top three commanders on the first day of the Israeli strikes. The chief of the general staff, the head of the IRGC, and their chief nuclear scientist.

I'm sure the Ayatollah is disoriented, and not sure who he can rely on. The three men killed possessed deep and specific knowledge, and without them Iran is substantially adrift.

It should be the job of Chinese and Russians to offer comradely help in this moment. Dust off and shake out the Iranians from their state of shock. Give them a reason to believe in themselves again.

They are a great nation, with a glorious history. They cannot be allowed to be defeated by this upstart organization.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


In the US, at least, things got a whole less classy in the Trump/Hillary cycle.

Hillary had her famous "Basket of Deplorables" moment, which probably lost her the election:

"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They're racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic - you name it.

And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people - now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric.

Now, some of those folks - they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America."

I don't know what on God's green earth had compelled Hillary to say this out loud, but she was channeling what a lot of people in her party were thinking.

Previously candidates would stop short of throwing these kind of fire bombs, and still pretended at least to try to be "President of all Americans".

Trump was a good boy too, and would lead a chant of "Lock Her Up!" during many of his rallies. This was like crack cocaine to his electorate. All sorts of animal instincts were unleashed.

Contrast this to McCain's correction, when a woman at a town hall called Obama a Muslim (as if that's an indictment):

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues, and that's what this campaign is all about".

This was highly classy, and made everyone respect John McCain much more. Maybe he would have beat Obama in the election, had he had thrown more napalm and used more corrosive speech, or didn't recruit a semi-literate retard as VP. But he didn't. He kept his good name, and didn't set American against American - even if it served his selfish interest.

Feedback / I love this forum - It's so Polish: tolerant, inconsistent, amusing [337]


The piece is long and the piece is girthy - thanks for confirming the fallacy of this.

------------

The rest, well - I'm frankly insulted.

It seems ChatGPT will say whatever you want it to say. I asked (neutrally) about Bobko on this forum, and he gave me a very decent response. Nothing special, lower in rank than some other folks (you included), but nothing about me being a troll or a Russian intelligence officer as Paulina likes to propose.

You biased it with your prompt.

Feedback / I love this forum - It's so Polish: tolerant, inconsistent, amusing [337]


Glad to not have been labeled a troll!

News / Will Elon Musk apply for political asylum in Poland or Russia? [39]


I don't think that a guy that wants to live on Mars, and works on problems like saving the planet from climate change - cares about a specific ethnic group from the Middle East and the bad reputation they have.

I might be wrong, but its my opinion that he isn't even capable of thinking in such categories.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


History shows that when Russia becomes involved - even such titans as Germany become "satellites", "puppets" etc.

Britain was a historic problem, because of its familial relationship with America. However, Britain has thankfully deleted itself out of the equation through epically stupid Brexit. Making our job supremely easier to accomplish.

The Germans are afraid of their own shadow.

The French are a shadow of what they imagine themselves to be.

The Italians are just happy to trade as good Gypsies.

Spain? Where is that?

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]

Thinking about it now...

Probably the first thing Russia would do is attempt to strengthen Brussels. To silence the rest.

It would push strongly for centralization. It would want all power to be handed over to Brussels.

The idea being that we control Brussels.

European centralization is only good if we are in charge. Otherwise, we will oppose it and do everything to prevent it from happening. God knows we have fertile ground to work with.

Largely following the British approach. Either we lead this thing, or we will try to destroy it.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


Russia sees the WORLD as its playground, and it feels that Europe is its home turf.

It is supremely offensive to Russia's sense of self, that Americans or Chinese can dictate how life develops on the Continent - all the while ignoring Russia.

I don't know about better or worse - but Russia will certainly try to remake the EU to more closely correspond with its own vision.

The Russian view on the EU is as an enormous force multiplier. Something that... if we gained access to - would ensure that our voice and our will are felt in every single corner of the globe. Already we are strong, but with the EU we would be invulnerable.

News / Will Elon Musk apply for political asylum in Poland or Russia? [39]

Elon likes Russia, and Russia likes Elon.

He came to Russia, to work with our rocket scientists, when he was planning his replacement for our RD-180 engine - which NASA had come to rely on as the sole engine that got it to space.

We are a big country - big enough and wide enough - to accommodate his ambition. With Russia, Elon can still conquer Mars and save the world from climate change.

With Poland he cannot do this.

Putin should directly invite Elon.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


No.

Orban explained well, why Ukraine in the EU is bad for Hungary.

It will absorb all the money, that would otherwise be going to you. It will make you poorer and less significant.

Ukraine has a demographic and industrial weight which Hungary and Poland do not possess. It would crush your agricultural, coal, and steelmaking industries. It would suppress the salaries of your people - because they are willing to work for less.

That's Ukraine.

Now imagine if Russia joins the EU? Nobody would ever remember about Poland again in Brussels? Even France and Germany would be competing to stay relevant. Russia, like Alexander I after the Napoleonic Wars, would seek to impose a dictate on how all of Europe should live. Russia's arguments would be infinite energy and the military power to ignore China and America.

For a Poland, that is climbing the ladder of the EU hierarchy, letting in a Russian monsters into the arena would not be good.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


LOL!

I would certainly not Katyn you, Kania! Haha!

I would shoot myself before shooting an unarmed and helpless person - regardless of whether in uniform or not.

Every people has beasts. Beasts get beast work. The beasts at Katyn were especially famous beasts. The main executioner, drank himself to death shortly after - unable to live with his conscience. That's Vasily Blokhin.

In Ukraine there are some beasts too, but there are many decent men. For example, recently I saw a video where a Russian officer slams the butt of a rifle into his underlings nose, after witnessing him humiliating a Ukrainian POW. With a broken face, and feeling a bit humiliated himself - the soldier immediately corrected his behavior.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


What are these interests?

As I understand them:

Russian interests:

1) Securing its "near abroad" as either allied to Russia or militarily neutral.

2) Protect the rights of Russian speakers, whether it applies to education, media, or government services.

3) Keep land and sea corridors open for Russian trade, whether it's a pipeline, a train, or a ship.

4) Prevent new states from acquiring nuclear weapons

5) Prevent encroachment of radical Islamism into our Muslim population

6) Ensure that space does not become an exclusively American or Chinese domain

Polish Interests:

1) Strengthening the economy and military to such a point, that Poland becomes considered a member of the core club of EU decision makers - alongside Italy, France, and Germany.

2) Ensure that regional leadership, vis-a-vis the Baltics, Slovakia, Czechia, Hungary - belongs to Poland. Any German or Russian influence there is undesirable.

3) Ensuring open access to the Baltic Sea

4) Defending the interests of the Polish diaspora, wherever they happen to live

5) Preventing the accession of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine into the EU.

6) Ensuring that America views Poland as its primary ally in the region, to prevent a repeat of 1939.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


It's interesting to observe Putin when he discusses Yeltsin.

He instinctively straightens up, and adopts a different tone of voice. For a moment - like a really quick glimpse - you can see Putin the employee again, talking about his boss.

"Boris Nikolayevich always used to say..."; "In cases like these, Boris Nikolayevich would never hesitate...", "We all know Boris Nikolayevich was a special person, but just how special - very few know...".

Just very curious, the special piety Putin still has for the memory of a person that many people think nearly killed Russia.

Every possible politician in Russia has said some bad thing about Yeltsin - except for Putin.

Maybe he thinks that if he doesn't say anything bad about Yeltsin, we won't say anything bad about him?

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


Dokładnie tak!

Yeltsin understood he could not protect the wider oligarchate, but he extracted a promise not to touch the immediate family. That is, daughter Tatyana and son-in-law Valentin, granddaughter Polina and her husband the oligarch Oleg Deripaska, and then the family "treasurer" Roman Abramovich.

Even as Putin was destroying Khodorkovsky, Gusinsky, Berezovsky, and others - he never touched "The Family".

Despite "The Family" representing everything Putin hated and what he built his public image in opposition to... he still showed up to the funeral. He has still not closed the Yeltsin Presidential Center, even though all it does is pour dirt on Putin.

In some sense, Putin is a very, very decent man. He knows how to keep his word and respect arrangements.

Thanks to him, Yeltsin did not have to witness his family go to jail or be scattered abroad in the last years of his life. He died as the first president of Russia, with all the honors and dignity possible.

Of course Putin burned to the ground his legacy, and is building a totally different Russia than Yeltsin envisioned - but Yeltsin never asked him to make any promises about that. In fact, it was Yeltsin who hand picked him. He must have saw in him what Russia needed.

News / Karol Nawrocki - the New President of Poland [486]


Quite nice. A strange sound. Sounds very familiar and close to the heart - on the one hand - but then some unorthodox/unrussian element plays and causes some dissonance.

What is this? To what rubric does it belong? Is this from the East of Poland?