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Comment by tootie | Hacker News Reader

I'll say this, the guy is bold as hell. He's an absolute maniac and probably worse than Putin but he sure isn't afraid of anything. One can only hope he wrecks enough chaos make the war in Ukraine untenable.

I'll also say this, Putin played his hand as poorly as humanly possible. He spent decades stockpiling loyalty and political capital with an iron fist and spent it all in less two years and has absolutely nothing to show for it. I think it's time to admit that beneath his steely-eyed, stoic demeanor he isn't half as smart as he's been given credit for.

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Is he bold and unafraid? My thought is he believes he has a 0% chance of living to this time next year given the current way things are going. If rebelling increases his odds to 0.5% and he doesn't care about the lives of anyone else it's the logical thing to do.

I'll say one thing - I wish US generals would publicly speak our against our wars and the lies behind them.

This guy is just pushing his own militaristic agenda. Also, he's not a general. He's the head of a mercenary/human trafficking organization. The US equivalent would be Erik Prince who has definitely been working his own agenda also and it isn't more benevolent than the Pentagon.

This guy is not speaking out - he was directly recruiting prisoners from jails and profiting mightily

It’s just part of the game

He watched the US disaster with Iraq and was like “oh yeah? hold my vodka…”

He even spread lies about Ukrainian bio weapons (WMDs!) in an echo of the Iraq war buildup BS.

Someone should have told him that Iraq was a disaster for the US and is now widely regarded as such by most of DC (whether or not they say it in public).

America lost like 4k soldiers over the 8 year war and lost no economic standing. It was expensive and stupid but not really a disaster for us.

Russia has lost over 100k in a year and effectively destroyed their economy and place in the world outside of nukes, all for basically no reason.

Yes, hence the “hold my vodka” joke. Usually that trope (original is “hold my beer”) indicates that the second imitator is going to do something far worse or dumber.

Not sure about the origin but it may be one of the “famous last words” list jokes. Other famous last words I remember included “watch this” and “I got this bro.”

In every single video I've seen of him he looks drunk.

Unless Putin let this thing simmer to draw out dissent and then crush it.

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