Crimea Bridge is an Object Lesson

 

Before we get into the inevitable ruckus about who invaded who and committed war crimes from the jump, I would like to use the blog's time to issue a shout-out to (checks notes) Puddin' who is 70 psychopathic years old, and the object of affection of fellow psychos everywhere from Chechnya to Syria, from Mar-A-Lago to Englewood. 

Now, if, like myself, you admire the grit and ingenuity of the Ukrainian people and as a matter of human rights, support their basic right to self-defense, you can't help but look at the flaming birthday candles just about a week from Putin's appalling overreach and ask yourself: Does this look like a man with a plan?

He is not. He is not a genius.  He wasn't goaded into the invasion by the US at all but was warned off of it. And absolutely everything Mike Flynn says about Russia at the moment has to be understood as proof who of pulls his actual strings. This is a man so bought as to warn off all potential customers because he's spoiled for them, a man whose only honor seems to be adherence to blaming America First. (Only the religious right in this country could stomach him, because they are accustomed to laundering scoundrels.) 

Eric Trump May Have This Backwards

Eric Trump: Putin was in with the KGB. He can read people and he could tell that Donald Trump was a very strong person pic.twitter.com/1BqhstcUMP

— Acyn (@Acyn) March 15, 2022

For some reason, the lad seems to believe that Putin had a good relationship with his father because his dad was "strong". Because obviously, a dictator would love to have a relationship with someone who is guaran-damn-teed to stand in his way. 

Yeah, Eric, Putin admired your dad for the opportunity to be turned away from his imperial dreams by a phone call and a "stern talking to." This lump-less tapioca-for-brains dad, who is going around saying Putin just wants to put his country back together because of "love".

Putin understood very well what he was getting with Trump. A trainable puppy.

It's one thing to assume that Trump's #2 son is merely confused by his familial devotion--but what is literally anyone else's excuse? 

The Bad Case of Vladimir Putin

 

In a fiery speech, President Vladimir Putin made the case that Ukraine is by history and makeup an integral part of Russia.https://t.co/Oz1k7cAOpH

— The New York Times (@nytimes) February 21, 2022

It might be better said that, rather than having "made the case", Putin advanced an argument based on revisionist history that fell just a bit short of crowning himself "Tsar of all the Russias". Putin has felt this sense of being robbed about the fall of the Soviet Union for a long time, and it wasn't actually a secret. 

It bothers me that people are framing recent events in contexts that are not complete because the story isn't recent, and address what Putin is doing in terms of what "the West", or particularly the current US administration, have or haven't done, which sometimes gets framed in the terms of "weakness" or "strength". It seems particularly hard for many of my fellow Americans to grasp that the world does not revolve around US politics. What we're looking at here is Russian imperialism.

This is something Putin wanted to do, and well, bucket list items do not cross themselves off. He benefits from the frame that he is reacting to the actions of other people; like all authoritarians, he uses the language of victimhood as justification for atrocity: "Look what you made me do." 

No one made him do this. He is responsible for the invasion of the separatist regions, and there is no reason to believe he will stop there if you listen to what he is and has been actually saying.