Ukraine's' Nightmare. Putin and The War That Never had To Be

Russia is the largest country in the world. It has enormous amounts of oil, gas and other raw materials. Russia is an armed to the teeth nuclear power. No nation will ever invade Russia, unlike what Russia is doing to Ukraine, without risking total annihilation. 

Putin can claim NATO is a threat in order to justify his war, but everyone knows, and surely Putin himself knows, that NATO will never invade or attack Russia. This is not about supporting or opposing NATO. It is simply a recognition of the limits of NATO and the reality of Russia.

There are no existential threats to Russia's existence. Unlike some other nations in the world that face real threats to their existence, Ukraine being one of them, the only wars that Russia fights or will fight in the future are offensive wars of Russia's choosing. 

There is only one reason for Putin's war against Ukraine. And that is Putin. He can brainwash his people into supporting the war based on ridiculous assertions, such as the Jewish president of Ukraine leading a nation of Nazis. But as Putin himself knows, the Nazis were genocidal aggressors following a  demented, power hungry man that were militarily defeated over 70 years ago. Right wing extremists in Ukraine are no percentage higher than that of right wing extremists in Russia or the United States. 

Abusive people, when they are in positions of power and authority, are convinced of their own grandiosity, importance, and infallibility. 

A fatal human flaw is the eagerness to blindly follow, without questioning, people in authority, no matter how sadistic, corrupt or deranged they may be. The willingness to submit without question to authority, be it to a person, religion or ideology, leads humanity often down dark paths. 

Putin plays the same drum that leads endlessly to war. Demonize the enemy. Dehumanize the enemy. Blame the enemy for everything. Take responsibility for nothing. 

For far too long Putin has poisoned, murdered and imprisoned his critics. Far too many on the inside and outside of Russia have willingly accepted and gone along with whatever Putin does. Much of this is the greed and selfishness that comes from pursuing business as usual no matter the cost. Eventually the cost of business as usual, when dealing with abusive people in power, becomes unacceptable, but by then it is too late. 

One day this nightmare will be over for the Ukrainian people, and also for the Russians that see the injustice in the Putin regime and his senseless war against Ukraine and that are being punished for protesting or resisting fighting in the war. Will anything have been learned so that history does not once again repeat itself?

This is not a battle of authoritarianism vs liberalism. This is about unchecked power. This is about no balances to that unchecked power. This is about the systems in place that allow abusive people to stay in power. This is about people that blindly follow without questioning. This is about the willingness of people to demonize and dehumanize the other, to cast away personal responsibility and morality while pursuing the destruction of the demonized other. Today it is the Ukrainians. Tomorrow it will be another group.

Free presses that are not tied to government interests, to parochial corporate interests, consisting of real journalists, a near extinct breed, and also average people that seek the pursuit of truth, not propaganda and the perpetuation of entrenched interests, are vitally important to keep war at bay.  Even this important check on power is eroding. 

Putin's war on Ukraine is a war that never had to be. And now millions suffer because of one man and his circle of cronies.

In Russia, where news of the war is suppressed, the day will come when practically everyone knows the truth. Millions of refugees, millions of Ukrainians that are suffering the bombings, the shootings, the artillery strikes, the abductions, the misconduct by those Russian soldiers committing lootings, murder, rape, beatings and torture are voices that will speak louder than propaganda and the suppression of the truth. The Russian soldiers that have a conscience also are witnesses to the senselessness and cruelty of the war that never had to be.

The Russian soldiers, treated as disposable cannon fodder, including the ones that dug trenches and stayed in the radioactive Chernobyl area, will one day know how little regards their higher ups had for their safety, if they do not already know this.

Abusive people in authority see their subordinates as inferior, dispensable and insignificant human beings. They care nothing about their enemies, and they care nothing about those on their side that serve under them.

This is Putin's war. Somewhere along the line, it should have been prevented. Appeasement was once again chosen, and all it led to is a full scale war. The opposite of appeasement does not mean war mongering. Appeasement can just as easily result in war as does war mongering. Neither is good.

This is the war that never had to be.

War supporting Anti-War Leftists; Russia, Ukraine

 There is an American hypocritical leftist with a large following. On one of her widely followed programs, she interviewed another so called anti-war leftist. They did what many leftists shamefully do - support war and evil from the side they support by deflecting to the sins of the United States and to the countries they despise.

It is not necessary to support the United States in order to oppose what Russia is doing in Ukraine. A true anti-war activist does not justify war as long as it comes from the side they support. A true anti-war activist opposes it all; all war, all senseless killing.

The phony anti-war activists parroted the Putin lines about the Ukrainians being a Nazi regime. A Jew running a Nazi regime?

The beleaguered brave president of the Ukraine is a Jew. He has not done what most leaders of the world would do if their country was attacked by a much stronger country - flee with boatloads of cash and riches. 

Putin and his leftists supporters, and also some of his supporters on the right, use NATO, American war mongering, and false claims about the Zelensky regime, in order to justify the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

Russia is an armed to the teeth nuclear power. No nation can attack Russia without being destroyed, and with probably having most, if not all of the world destroyed. Ukraine never was a threat to Russia, no matter the degree to which phony leftists and like minded rightists pretend otherwise.

Nothing justifies the Putin war against Ukraine. Nothing.

Hostage To Bullies, Hostage to Nuclear Weapons

 We are hostages to nuclear weapons and the leaders that hold their finger on their launches. A decade or two, even a century may pass, and yet this threat never goes away. 

All it takes is one person, one person in power, to unleash hell on earth. 

If the great coward Hitler, who sent millions to their deaths, had his grimy little hands on the nuclear weapons launch, he would not have killed himself in the bunker. He would have taken at least half of humanity down with him. 

Hitler was not the first, nor will be the last, bully to ascend to power, with clingy sycophants all around. Fortunately for the world, Germany in the 1940's did not have nuclear weapons. 

Humankind produces weak, sadistic men and women all the time that rise to power. Bullies that make miserable the lives of the targets they choose to torment. Often these weak and evil bullies are in small positions of authority, maybe as a supervisor on a police department, in a factory, in a corporation, in government, in a school, but when one of them rises to a top position of authority, look out world below for a nightmare to follow. 

A bully and a nuclear weapon are the recipe for hell unleashed. 

The War That Never Had To Be. Ukraine

What does Putin hope to gain by invading the Ukraine? What was Russia lacking that made Putin feel compelled to attack Ukraine? Russia is the largest country in the world. It is rich with oil and other resources. It is rich with agricultural lands. It is a vast country lacking nothing. 

It is a nation that can never be attacked again. This is not WW2. Russia is a powerful nation armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons. 

Putin is threatening to use nuclear weapons. If he is mad enough to carry out the threat, we are all doomed. 

The Russian soldiers that were marched through Chernobyl on their way to Kiev may one day realize how little regard Putin and oligarchs had for their safety by marching them through contaminated radioactive terrain on their way to wage a war that makes no sense.

No matter what grievances Russia has with NATO, with the west leaning present government of Ukraine, or anything else, nothing justifies this invasion. 

There are those on the left and right that justify Putin's war based on the U.S. setting the precedent for such actions. When did one wrong ever justify another? One wrong never justifies another. 

The George Bush and company regime change folly in Iraq led to great suffering and death. 

Does Putin and company honestly think they can invade Ukraine and not pay a heavy price? 

The longer this war goes on, the more innocent Ukrainian civilians will suffer, the more Ukrainian and Russian soldiers will die needlessly, the more people will become permanently crippled and wounded, the more misery will spread.

There is a way for Russia to save face and for the war to end immediately. 

Negotiate with Zelensky some kind of agreement regarding the neutrality of Ukraine and NATO. Sweden and Finland are not in NATO. 

And then leave the Ukraine.  Stop the fighting while the negotiations take place. Enough people have already died, enough people have already been wounded.

Identity Politics, Wokeness, Victimhood And Violence and Hate

 

Pandering to victimhood and throwing personal responsibility out the window blossomed, or maybe even originated, in the 1960's. There is nothing new, useful or helpful about the so called woke movement and identity politics. 

As violence escalates in the states, white and nonwhite acceptance of violence, bigotry and hate as long as it comes from nonwhites, has led to the same thing that it led to many decades ago - more violence, more bullying, more hate. 

Racism is not just about overt hate and discrimination. Racism includes people of all races that use race to be a bully, to intimidate, to be violent, or to be a narrow minded bigot. Racism includes having lowered standards and expectations based on race. Racism includes failing to hold people accountable for their hate, bigotry and violence because of their race, or because they are granted victimhood status that misguidedly exempts them from responsibility. Accepting, condoning or excusing violence, bigotry and hate from people because they are of a certain race, religion, ethnicity or creed, leads to more violence, bigotry and hate.

The wokeness that now exists is no different than the perverted wokeness, victimhood worship, and identity politics that started casting its dark cloud in the 1960's.  Some of it is driven by a need for moral superiority and false virtuosity. Some of it is driven by racism itself. 

When excuses are made for violence, bigotry and hate, when violence, bigotry and hate are ignored, excused or condoned, all that results is more violence and more hate. 

Post Covid and The Drums Of War Are Back

 As people emerge from the covid pandemic, the focus is back again on war, missiles and killing each other. 

There is no way to know, without inside knowledge, what are Russia's true intentions. We rely on news sources that may or may not be accurate. If Russia does invade Ukraine, it will be proof once again that humans are the most foolish, destructive species that ever walked the planet.

A Russian Invasion Of Ukraine is Indefensible

Many on the left and right defend Russia's military buildup along the border with Ukraine and accuse the United States of war mongering. It is not necessary to defend the United States, or argue that the United States has not engaged in war mongering and unnecessary wars, to understand that this is not about the U.S. or U.S. war mongering. 

It is not necessary to defend NATO, or the expansion of NATO, to believe that Russian grievances with NATO do not justify a war with Ukraine. 

Russia is an armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons state. No country can invade Russia and expect to not be annihilated, along with the rest of the world from the nuclear weapons fallout. 

Ukraine and its civilian population must not suffer because of the failures of the west and Russia to reach agreements on NATO or anything else.

The world faces mass poverty, enormous environmental degradation and poisoning that threats life on earth, nuclear weapon proliferation, biodiversity collapse, and more, yet the pursuit of war continues to be a far greater priority.