Blind Men See More Clearly Than This

 Since my last post, Russia invaded Ukraine and most of the world decided they suddenly loved Ukraine resulting in an outpouring of outrage and a proliferation of blue & yellow avatars on social media accounts. Suddenly, a clash between completely corrupt countries became the most black and white war ever seen. Any criticism about Ukraine or its leader Volodymyr Zelensky was heresy, Nazi supporting, and Putin adoration worthy of being burned at the stake.

Well, that's on one side. 

The other side extolled the virtues of the one true defender of Christianity, free speech, and capitalism: Vladimir Putin. Righting all the wrongs done by Biden, Hilary Clinton, and the Krampus, anything said against him was heresy, Neo Nazi supporting, Zelensky adoration worthy of being burned at the stake.

Any attempts by individuals at being a voice of reason has resulted in said voices being shouted down for being a villain supporting one side or the other depending on the stance of the denouncer. Usually keeping a cool and objective perspective is desired, but not in 2022 as raging emotionalism has become the only form of public discourse allowed in the modern West, not just the United States of America.

We didn't need that added to the already murky fog of war, yet here we are.

This post is an attempt to record my thoughts in extremely broad strokes for future posterity. There is no way I could document all that I've read and researched over the years without writing a lengthy book, so this is more for my consumption/memories than anything else. 

Sigh. The idiocy permeating all reporting, opining, and political posturing over the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine exacerbates my having lost all faith in humanity over the past two years.

The stakes couldn't be higher since I'm getting the sense that some kind of use of nuclear weapons is now a probability rather than just a possibility. For all the noise being made in support of Ukraine, only small arms are being provided by supporting countries, mainly out of a rightful fear of provoking World War III, Yet demands to do more keep popping up including an abortive attempt to supply fighter jets, implementation of a no-fly zone, or even providing boots on the ground. None of these are good ideas.

People wish to believe the Russians are merely sabre rattling about using nuclear weapons or expanding the war to remove N.A.T.O. from Europe. Yes, that was one of their demands during negotiations last December and no Putin did not offer that as an initial high ask. Go check out Macron's latest phone call with Putin for reference. It was an eye opener for the French leader, to say the least.

Going back to what happened during the Cold War, one shocking thing to me was discovering the vast majority of Soviet leaders, military and civilian, really believed the U.S. and N.A.T.O. were determined to invade and destroy them at any moment. Astounding levels of paranoia and feelings of persecution are ingrained in Russian culture, most likely due to their being invaded repeatedly for many centuries by foreign powers. Hey, the United States invaded Russia and held territory briefly during World War I!

That was never taught in school here.

Years ago, I talked to someone who served a mission in Russia and he described the people thusly: "It's like they were all dropped on their heads as babies." He clarified that it was his feeling after witnessing the highly emotional and self destructive tendencies running through the population at large. There's something about their culture that is intrinsically screwed up.

Consequently, violence always has been the solution for most problems there and in dealing with foreigners. Back when the Berlin Wall fell triggering the dissolution of the U.S.S.R. a few years later, I thought expanding N.A.T.O. was a very good move and even hoped that Russia might be brought in eventually. It was a beautiful dream. However, once Boris Yeltsin was out of power things slowly grew frosty again.

As time went by, I viewed the adjoining countries to Russia as very poor candidates for membership since it is clear their joining would only revive the paranoia of being invaded by us. Of course, this opinion was informed by the new information previously mentioned about Cold War beliefs. Even so, I felt as long as the expansion didn't go past that of 1999's admission of Poland, the Czech Republic, and Hungary everything would be fine.

Well, since then, one country after another has joined with multiple directly on the border with paranoid Russia. Eleven more from 2004 to 2020, plus France officially rejoining, to be precise. With Ukraine, Sweden, and Finland becoming possible members, Putin surely felt his paranoia was justified and N.A.T.O. led by the United States thought they could take over by diplomatic/economic means.

It isn't like we didn't know this. The annexation of Crimea in 2014, the Georgia invasion, and constant probing of air defenses by Russian war planes into American and allied areas has been steadily ramping up.

Yet corrupt politicians of both major political parties have continued to get rich off of foreign aid to Ukraine in the form of kickbacks and bribes. Most people know nothing of Ukraine, but I've been aware of its unmatched corruption for many years -- no wonder it has soaked up hundreds of millions in aid year after year and somehow remained the second poorest country in Europe. As is traditional in corruption, most is done through family members of powerful politicians: brothers, sons, daughters, or even close associates.

Why? Plausible deniability. After all, the politician him or herself didn't take the bribe personally so they aren't lying by denying wrongdoing when confronted. This is the way of lawyers where splitting hairs determines guilt or innocence -- isn't human made law wonderful?

Here in the United States, the following political families have made millions off of Ukraine, much related to the gas firm Burisma: Clinton, McCain, Biden, and Romney. There are others, but those are the big fish. As for European leaders, I've not informed enough to say, but the incredibly fast reaction of European countries to move to sanctions against Russia is abnormal. Normally they stall and move slowly due to a lot of Russian money involved in their economies.

So it is no surprise that Putin invaded under pretenses of saving ethnic Russians (yes there are genuine Neo Nazi's in East Ukraine) in order to thwart N.A.T.O. and regain control of the mismanaged natural resourced found in Ukraine (hey, they grow 25% of the world's grain, large reserves of oil/gas) while re-establishing the greater Russian Empire. When Joe Biden gave him the green light to go ahead and take the breakaway regions of Ukraine in a speech indicating they wouldn't consider that a major provocation, I imagine Putin smirked as the open weakness of the Biden administration meant taking even more was now on the table.

Bizarrely, while the weakness was on display, elements of the administration if not all of it, were showing signs of wanting a conflict with Russia over Ukraine. Possibly it was sabre rattling based on the idea that we are scary enough to deter Putin into doing nothing or a limited war. Maybe the military industrial complex wanted an atmosphere conducive to more arms sales. Another motivator might be the desire to make sure the kickbacks weren't exposed and to keep the gravy train going. 

How about sheer incompetency like with everything else involving the Biden era?

No matter the reasons, the end result was an emboldened Putin. The refusal by Biden's handlers to sanction Russian oil and gas indicates just how serious they are about punishing Putin...

Given the latest battlefront news, it is clear the invasion is about taking all of Ukraine. Russian propaganda is now stating that Russians and Ukrainians are the same people. While not going as quickly or smoothly as Putin's generals told him, advancement is steady in the south and west at the cost of heavy losses by the Russian military. Numerous civilian lives are being lost with one million refugees fleeing the country as the classic Russian brutality has emerged in reaction to the impressive resistance of Ukrainian soldiers and civilians.

Aside from that, all news is questionable since both sides are telling outright lies for propaganda purposes. That's frustrating for me for many reasons with the least being a military weapons buff trying to figure our which weapons systems are proving or disproving their effectiveness. 

Of course, that's exceedingly minor given the cost of human lives ongoing and the potential for things to simply get out of hand. And by out of hand, I'm talking about a third world war. Russia has threatened the use of nuclear weapons against anybody who intervenes then threatened Finland and Sweden if they join N.A.T.O. 

The previous two world wars didn't start all at once, instead they began with a small match being lit that spread the fire of war from nation to nation via the cords of the mutual defense treaties until the world was ablaze. If it happens again, the fire will be different -- a radioactive fire bringing suffering unimaginable.

Reports are filtering in from European and U.K. newspapers that some of the Russian oligarchs are now objecting to the invasion. Maybe the sanctions are working or maybe the incredibly bad PR for Russia in general has had impact. If this is happening, Putin's isn't as secure domestically as most would think.

A little internal regime change in the offing? Hopefully.

All one can do is pray that cooler heads prevail.