The cognitive dissonance is deafening.

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Zerohedge and the Unz Review are working overtime to assure me of two very contradictory things.  The usual suspects - Pepe Escobar, Paul Craig Roberts and Mike Whitney are working it almost daily. Even Taki of Taki magazine, Celia Farber and Peachy Keenan have chimed in. They claim:

(1)  Ukraine is losing this war badly. Our country cannot afford to lose any more soldiers. We need to stop it now!

(2)  Ukraine cannot afford to provoke Russia any more by introducing new weaponry such as the cluster munitions, Storm Shadow and Scalp missiles, F-16s, ATACAMs and Abrams tanks. It will result in nuclear war.

Meanwhile, they ignore the fact that Ukraine is having significant victories. We have punched our way through the Surovikin Line despite the fact that Russia has massed troops from all over their vast country to defend it. They are using 10,000 paratroopers, highly trained for stealthy attacks, as cannon fodder to resist us in Robotyne.

We first decimated Crimea's air defenses (the invincible Triumph AS/400 air defense system has proven to be vincible), then we knocked out some pretty important ships and equally importantly, the ship repair facility in which they were sitting. The cherry on the cake was a one-two punch that first destroyed the Black Sea Fleet's backup command center in the hills above Sevastopol, and then a strike on the center itself that Ukraine claims killed the top admiral and 33 other members of the leadership.

Ukraine reports on losses that it suffers, such as a train carrying arms and munitions to the front lines. We have lost a few Leopard tanks and other equipment donated by the West.

The other supposed Ukrainian losses that reported by the Russian press are in the first place not nearly as significant as the Black Sea Fleet headquarters, and in the second place, mostly exaggerated or simply denied by Ukraine. Though Ukraine is obviously closed-mouth about its losses, what it reports is generally fairly accurate. On the other hand, Russian propaganda is so constant and egregious that YouTube blogger The Russian Dude finds enough material to start his daily reports with a sarcastic Russian propaganda update.

The above-named newly minted conservative pacifists desperately want Ukraine's offensive to stop. From the vantage of my vast military experience (California National Guard – 1964-68 and supporting the military with IBM 1968-1979) I would say it would be absolute folly to let up when the other guy is on the ropes. Continuing the push will cost lives, but Ukraine needs to do it.

The Johnny-come-lately antiwar newbies among the conservative ranks in the US refuse to acknowledge what a disaster it has always been for people living under Russian domination. They need look no further than the recent fates of Chechens, Georgians, Transnistrians, and especially the Ukrainians from Crimea and Donbass who have been under Russian domination since 2014 and those who suffer under Russian domination right now.

If they do choose to look further, they can examine the fate of the minorities in Siberia – also known as Ukrainian cannon fodder.  They can talk to the Finns in Karelia ,annexed in 1939 and the citizens of the Eastern European satellites in the period 1945-1991. 

Ukraine's staunchest allies are the neighbors that know the Russians best.  The Poles and Hungarians have been invaded off and on, and Ukrainians throughout our history.   Since the time of the Mongols the Russians have been known as cruel overlords, bringing nothing, taking everything. History teaches that there is no alternative except to fight them. Centuries of bitter history have given Ukraine has the will.  Thank God for the West's will to at least arm us.

The Minsk Accords of 2014 demonstrate that no peace at this juncture would be lasting. The Russians never stopped fighting, and never stopped blaming Ukraine for the fact that the conflict continued. Ukraine knows exactly how and why the fighting continued, as well as the effectiveness of the propaganda to the effect that it was Ukraine's fault. This is how Russia has always operated – brute force and deceit. Ukraine has no choice but to fight.

Another outcome of an armistice at this juncture would undoubtedly be a thorough and brutal Russian purification of the occupied regions. They would identify and get rid of people with Ukrainian sympathies, and certainly the numerous partisans who have been supporting Ukraine throughout the occupation. Stopping the fight now would save Russian lives, but the loss of Ukrainian lives in the occupied areas would continue.

The latest flap is about Marina Abramovic, the supposed Satanist that Zelinsky has appointed as an ambassador. It is all over the Western press. I find nothing about it via a Ukrainian language Internet search. The wording is peculiar – they call her "an ambassador for Ukraine."  What the hell is an ambassador for Ukraine? Some kind of diplomat? Not at all.

The press reports never define what it is. Apparently she is supposed to be an advocate for education. While I certainly do not endorse appointing a Satanist as an ambassador for children's education, we do have to recognize that (1) she is a fairly centrist figure, with a long career in performance art and (2) there is no indication she will have any power in this position. Recognizing her is likely to have been a sop to the White House.  Stupid, but nothing more.

The objective of war is to win, not to get revenge. Russia has been launching fleets of drones and missiles at Ukraine's civilian infrastructure, allegedly as revenge for our blowing up military targets in Crimea. I would do not want to be one of the civilians who dies, but on the other hand, it is satisfying to note that Russia has nothing better to do with their expensive weaponry than waste it on nonmilitary targets. The upshot is that we in Kyiv hear more and more air raid sirens and occasional loud explosions.

The flap of the week is lice.  Eddie apparently brought them back from summer camp. Grandma, grandpa and I have seen it before and are rather blasé about it. You get the stuff you need from the drugstore, apply it conscientiously, and the problem goes away.

That's one day's worth of observations from Lake WeBeGone, where the good-looking woman is finally satisfied that the older generation knows what is doing licewise. The kids and I enjoy beautiful weather as we bike to kindergarten and school. They wave at the bus driver, who will see us regularly as we got deeper into fall.

Graham