Speaking of unforeseen effects. These times bring back traumas. Cold War memories of early childhood. Overturning back yard basins and flowerpots. This so radioactive rain won't collect. Open air nuclear tests in our republic were common then. I and some of you still have Strontium-90 in our bones from that time.
I'm having dreams of end time events. Being caught in the park during a nuclear warhead detonation. As I kid, I dreamt that often. I just did again. Exactly the same dream. I was even 10 or 11 in the dream as before. It was like being inside a suddenly switched-on lightbulb.
The European war is settling into one of attrition. Russia can't take all the Ukrainian cities so they're bombing them to bits. This is standard battle doctrine for them. They did it to their breakaway republics and Syria. So it's like Verdun. Neither side takes much ground they just hack at each other till one sez 'uncle'.
The wild card is Putin like all deranged autocrats won't give. Come May or June he could say "...fuck it" and loose a warhead at Kiev. Maybe a single airburst megaton. Mind if so he'd likely be removed. The method a 9mm round to the head or retirement to his dacha or turn him over the the Hauge for trial.
That or more canned sunshine is tossed about.
As Z mentioned in da comments. Covid/Ukraine has finally ended the 20th century. Just as WW1 ended the 19th century. The 21st is before us.
Putin is not deranged. He is an old-fashioned czar. He is playing the traditional game of empire. His goals are rational - not necessarily nice, but rational. It is likely he will attain his military objective, which is to prevent Ukraine from being used any further to threaten Russia, which we have foolishly been doing.
ReplyDeleteIf we want to see crazy people, we should be looking in the mirror. We should be looking at our lunatic neocons, such as for example Victoria Nuland. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, our policy toward Russia has been uniformly idiotic; we have done everything in our power to alienate Russia, which in terms of conventional forces is now almost certainly more powerful militarily than we are.
In addition to being crazy, we are also stupid. Our sanctions to punish Russia by refusing to buy Russian oil and gas are actually a decision to punish ourselves. Gasoline in my neck of the woods is now 6 bucks a gallon. Inflation is taking off, and likely to get much worse: so it is we, American consumers, who are being punished. We are to cutting off our nose to spite our face. Thank you, D.C. establishment!
It is likely that we are going to suffer, principally because of our own dumb choices.
Z
https://geopolitics.co/2022/03/01/ukraine-the-mess-that-victoria-nuland-made/
DeleteYa know in my old age I'm not too much into picking folks as villains. I'm thinking of giving that guy in da mirror a pass. Extenuation crap all that. So I'm not calling folks villains. Unless they're villains. Putin and his opposite numbers here are villains. The rest of us just pay for the damage. Some with their lives. Here with the further destruction of a way of civilized life.
ReplyDeleteFuture historians if any will say as you do that pushing NATO to Russia's doorstep was asking for it. Ukraine pays for that. Russia has a collective memory of 26+ millions dead.
Though I think Stalin killed more or came close. Having NATO as close to them as Canada is to us was...untenable. Any science fiction fan could have told NATO that. Either way those folks were driven insane by it. And here we are.
Like you commented. The 21st Century began in December 2019 when rumors of what we'd eventually call COVID started. This grand land war in Europe. The first in 80 years is the first chapter of our not so new century. I exclude the 1990's Balkan genocides as part of the main course. They were more of an appetizer like the Spanish Civil War was to WW2.
In that context Putin's make Russia great again stuff makes sense. Mind you Russia would have slaughtered Ukraine and soon the Baltic republics anyway. We just hurried it along. It was the West's arrogance to Russian after "winning" the Cold War. Another opportunity to make that new world we used to hope for lost.
Like China in the 19th Russia was humiliated and didn't feel like living with it for 100 years like they did. 30 years was enough and here we are. Yeah, Putin has used chemical warheads before. He'll do it again. Nukes...who da fuck knows. I wouldn't be surprised given all the insane shit of the last more or less 10 years.
Me. My feet hurt. The diabetes stuff is acting up. Also as you can tell I'm emotionally unstable...right who ain't. I wish you good health and a full gas tank. Well a quarter full anyway. We'll see what Spring and Summer brings.
We just have to hang in there Uncle!
DeleteAs I keep telling you we all love you!
A quarter tank is a lot these days! I'm grateful when I can afford that much.
DeleteSorry to hear about the diabetes acting up. That bites the big one. I hope the symptoms go away and piss off.
Z
Thanks to both of you good comrades.
ReplyDeleteI'm right now composing a most resentful missive to my blood sugar mix.
Ahem:
"...See here, wot da foc are you morons doing down there?!!"