Tag Archives: Vladimir Putin

Joe Biden, military news

Putin threatens to go MAD

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Vladimir Putin needs no explanation of what used to pass as a nuclear deterrence policy followed by the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.

The Russian dictator reportedly is angry that President Biden has given Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles to strike deeply into Russia as it seeks to defend itself against Putin’s immoral and illegal invasion of its sovereign neighbor.

What is the Russian goon/thug/madman/tyrant/despot threatening to do? He is threatening to use “tactical nuclear weapons” against Ukrainian forces.

Let’s see. How do I say this tactfully? Oh, hell. I can’t.

It would be a mistake of catastrophic proportions!

You see, U.S. and Soviet nuclear deterrence was based on a policy of “mutually assured destruction.” Putin, who once led the Soviet system of spooks, knows the policy as well as any Russian alive today.

Using tactical nukes in the largest ground war in Europe since World War II well could produce a response from NATO — and the United States — that could destroy Russia.

Therefore, I am hesitant to buy fully into the notion that Vladimir Putin has gone MAD.

Then again, Putin did invade Ukraine … and his forces are getting their butts kicked in the field of battle.

crime news, International news

ISIS rears its evil head

Joe Biden has been handed yet another crisis … as if he needs anything else to occupy his time.

The Islamic State is taking “credit” for a massive shooting spree in Moscow that has killed at least 60 people; they were attending a music festival in the Russian capital.

What does the president do? He’s already on record opposing Russian dictator Vladimir Putin’s illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine. He has labeled Putin a war criminal for the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets.

He now might be forced to decide whether to send aid to Russia as it seeks to clean up the carnage left by ISIS’s ghastly goons. The victims were innocent civilians. Does the president commit U.S. intelligence professionals to help the Russians identify the source of this horrific deed?

All that said, I am left only to offer my deep sympathy to the family members and loved ones of those who were killed or injured by terrorists. As for what President Biden might do, I offer my sincere good wishes that his power of discernment doesn’t fail him now.

International news, national news, political news

Where’s the outrage?

The 45th POTUS has remained stunningly silent on the “rigged election” that occurred the other day in Russia, which elected his pal Vladimir Putin to another term as president/strongman/despot/thug/goon.

And yet the former Moron in Chief continues to rail against the phony allegation that the 2020 election in this country was “stolen” from him. It wasn’t.

Putin is despot for life in Russia, a title to which his American pal aspires, or so it appears.

He “won” the election in Russia against virtually zero opposition, which is how they do things in the formerly democratic Russian Federation. It is reverting to the ways of old, to the ways of the evil empire it replaced in 1991.

Are we hearing anything in protest from the presumed Republican presidential nominee or from his shrinking gaggle of cult followers?

Hah! Not even …

2016 election, International news, media news, military news, national news

The moment still sickens me

Time for an admission, which is that every reference to the 2016 presidential election outcome fills me with the same level of revulsion I felt when the TV networks called it for the former Moron in Chief.

Case in point: I just finished watching a nine-part Netflix documentary series on the cold war, titled, “Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War.” It is well-done, thorough and it walks us through the period from World War II to the present day. The images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki are heart-breaking and stark, to be sure.

Then it walks us to the here and now. The Soviet Union has imploded and the new president, Vladimir Putin, is filled with delusions of grandeur and longs for a return to the Stalinesque era of repression.

He invades Ukraine in February 2022 and there he is, plastered on the TV screen, along with the 45th POTUS and his buddy-buddy relationship with Putin.

Netflix felt obliged to show the candidate-to-be riding down the escalator in the office tower that bears is name with his wife to announce his run for the presidency. It also replayed the moment when the GOP nominee was declared the winner of the 2016 contest.

So help me, I cannot help but feel sickened beyond measure at the idea of replaying that scenario this coming November.

The documentary made no editorial comment on what occurred in 2016. The producers delivered it straight and for that I applaud them.

Critics of this blog accuse me of suffering from the “Derangement Syndrome” associated with the once and likely future GOP presidential nominee. I plead guilty! Yes, I suffer from it.

But … so should all Americans who give a damn about preserving democracy and scorning the dictatorial impuses of the moron who aspires to re-take control of our nuclear arsenal.

International news, military news, national news

Attack NATO allies? Seriously?

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The former POTUS continues to spew garbage from his overfed pie hole. Consider this little gem.

He was campaigning the other day and said out loud that he would encourage Russian despot/dictator/dipshit Vladimir Putin to attack our NATO allies … namely those of them that haven’t been paying their “fair share” to protect Europe against Russian aggression.

Think of this for just a moment — that’s all it’ll take — to ponder the effect of such an action. It would trigger World War III, pure and simple. There’s a clause in the NATO treaty that declares that an attack on one NATO member is an attack on all the nations. It would require a military response.

Is there any more reason to realize how utterly unfit for office this idiot is? That he must never again be allowed near the Oval Office?

This is a dangerous man who continues to reap support among most Republican Party primary voters. He and those who endorse his rants are certifiable lunatics.

International news, military news

We cannot hold Ukraine aid hostage

The United States has gone all in on aid to Ukraine as it defends itself against Russian aggression. Therefore, it is imperative that congressional Republicans stop holding our aid to Ukraine hostage to security issues relating to our own border.

They are jeopardizing our standing as the world’s leading defender of democracy as it seeks in Ukraine to fend off the advances of the autocracy run by Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin.

Of course, that seems to matter little to the MAGA crowd that calls the cadence for Republicans to follow. The MAGA cultists have swallowed the poison blathered by Donald Trump who continues to extol the “virtues” of Putin’s alleged toughness.

What’s at stake is the possible involvement of NATO nations in a ground war with Russia if Putin decides to extend his territorial land grab to nations that belong to NATO. Were that to happen, then, well … all hell is going to break loose in eastern Europe.

Do we really want that to happen? Do we really want to send U.S. forces into battle with Russians, which would appear to be imperative if Russia attacks a NATO nation? We have that clause in the treaty that declares that an attack on one NATO state is an attack on the entire organization.

We cannot possibly in good conscience turn away from helping Ukraine defend its sovereignty against a foreign aggressor, which attacked Ukraine without provocation more than a year ago.

Putin is an evil despot whose misadventure in Ukraine must be stopped. Period!

That the GOP would seek to hold our assistance hostage to an unrelated issue is unconscionable on its face.

International news, military news

How much can Russians take?

It’s fair to ask of our fellow travelers who happen to live in Russia: How much more of their country’s squalid leadership can they take as they watch their young soldiers get slaughtered in Ukraine?

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin launched an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine in February 2022. He reportedly expected a quick-and-dirty finish to the conflict, with the Ukrainians buckling under the weight of the vastly superior Russian army.

Not so fast. It damn sure didn’t happen.

Now the Ukrainians have launched their long-anticipated “counter offensive” and have retaken much of the land captured by Russian troops.

Putin’s armed forces have performed miserably. Putin surely must know it. Every international observer worth a damn has declared the Russian effort a tactical defeat for Putin.

Back to my question …

Russians cannot possibly be so gullible that they believe the propaganda put forth from the Kremlin about the so-called “success” of the military effort in Ukraine. They have access to worldwide media accounts that tell a stark story of incompetence, malfeasance, desertion among the troops and draftees fleeing the country to avoid conscription into the Russian army.

It all makes me wonder just how much longer Putin can continue to (mis)manage this conflict.

He is being offered a bitter but nonetheless important lesson, which tells him something like this: You do not invade another sovereign country expecting it to roll over just because you demand it. 

The Russians should have learned that lesson already in Afghanistan. It reminds me of the truism about “those who fail to learn from their mistakes are doomed to repeat them.”

International news

Putin gets his payback

Yevgeny Prigozhin seems to have died in a plane crash today.

I say “seems” because Russian authorities haven’t yet declared that he is indeed one of the 10 people who died when the plane plummeted to the ground.

Who is this guy? Two months ago, he mounted a mutiny against Russian strongman Vladimir Putin with his mercenary army  marching within spitting distance of Moscow. Prigozhin called off his challenge to Putin, retreated to Belarus, and then Putin declared that he wouldn’t exact any punishment against Prigozhin.

Then this happened. Coincidence? Hardly!

The death of this thoroughly bad actor shouldn’t come as any surprise to anyone. Putin’s promise to let Prigozhin live on was pure BS and those who follow Kremlin intrigue knew it when Putin made the declaration.

I am not mourning Prigozhin’s apparent demise. I am just aghast that Vladimir Putin would follow the script from which he has been reading once again … while the world is watching how he is prosecuting an illegal and immoral war against Ukraine.

International news

Putin commits No. 1 blunder

In the annals of strategic blunders, it appears to me that an all-time mess-up might have been committed by Russian dictator/tyrant/goon Vladimir Putin.

He invaded Ukraine in February 2022 thinking the war would be brief, that he would install a puppet government in Kyiv, he could bring his troops home, he could force NATO to fall apart and could have his way in that part of Europe.

Wrong!

President Joe Biden declared this week on his trip to Lithuania and then to Helsinki, Finland, that Putin already has “lost the war” in Ukraine.

His military is third-rate at best; Ukraine has shown itself to be more than capable; NATO not only has held together, it has grown; Finland’s inclusion in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization effectively doubles the size of territory bordering Russia.

Oh, and the alliance has held because of Biden’s expertise in foreign policy and his steady leadership as president of the world’s pre-eminent military and economic superpower.

My sense now is that it might be time to start pressuring Putin to begin negotiating a way out of this war. We have supplied Ukraine with plenty of arms, ordnance, various supplies and training to handle the supposedly vaunted Russian military. The Russians have demonstrated time and again a level of battlefield incompetence that no one saw coming.

President Biden is not overstating what looks to be more obvious all the time … that Russia has already “lost” the Ukraine War.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

military news

If only a good guy could emerge

Before we get too far down the road in wishing for a different outcome in that brief rebellion we witnessed in Russia, it’s good to put a couple of aspects in proper perspective.

One is that the alternative to Russian strongman/goon/tyrant Vladimir Putin was not a good one.

The commander of the Wagner military group of mercenaries is one bad dude. Yevgeny Prigozhin had led a march to about 125 miles south of Moscow before he called the whole thing off. Putin called him a traitor and vowed maximum revenge.

Then Prigozhin high-tailed it to Belarus after that country’s president brokered some sort of stand-down. Putin said Prigozhin wouldn’t face punishment after all.

That’s all the bad news. The good news is that there appear to be major cracks appearing in Putin’s ring of protection in the Kremlin, according to U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

“I suspect that this is a moving picture and we haven’t seen the last act yet. But we can say this,” Blinken told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “First of all, what we have seen is extraordinary. And I think you have seen cracks emerge that weren’t there before: first in having Prigozhin raise front and center — questioning the very premises of the Russian aggression against Ukraine to begin with — the argument that somehow Ukraine or NATO posed a threat to Russia, and a direct challenge to Putin himself.”

Prigozhin’s forces have been fighting alongside Russians seeking to overthrow the Ukrainian government … and have been getting their asses kicked by Ukrainian forces. The Wagner leader is angry over the incompetence being shown by Putin and his military high command, which is why — apparently — he sought to toss Putin out via a military coup.

If it’s true that Vladimir Putin’s regime is showing signs of weakness, then it appears incumbent on those who want him removed to ensure that an actual democrat emerges to take the reins of power in the Kremlin.

Yevgeny Prigozhin is nothing of the sort.

Still, what we witnessed for about 48 hours was a remarkable attempt to unseat a wholly evil tyrant who should stand trial as the war criminal he has proven himself to be.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com