And the Truth?

The news shows are nonstop "coverage" of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The usual instant and pre-cooked "experts" suddenly appear and tell us everything about the military tactics, the political objectives, and even the mental state of Vlad Putin. Must be nice to be so very smart and in the know. 

Not much, actually, makes sense. We know that Russia has invaded Ukraine despite weeks of US and other Western policy gurus telling us that this or that sanction was aimed at stopping such an invasion from happening. Not much commentary on the fact that Putin's war was made possible by the morons of the Green Universe who have gotten the West to degrade its energy independence, thereby, gifting Putin billions and billions of dollars to use to upgrade his military, and hold a swath of European countries hostage to Russian energy supplies. I hope the environmentalists, such as that moron John Kerry, hold fast to their hopes that Putin will work with us to reduce carbon emissions as they watch Ukrainian cities and oil depots burn from Russian missile strikes. 

A lot more things don't make sense. Why haven't the Russians, "masters" at cyber warfare, cut off Ukraine's connections to the outside world? I see Ukrainians walking around with iPhones freely making calls all over the world, and Western journalists "embedded" in Lviv and Kyiv freely broadcasting to that same world. Are the Russians that incompetent? Possible. Whatever the reason, Putin and his boys have lost the propaganda war bigly. We even see the usual tech giants moving to suppress "Russian propaganda and misinformation." The Iranians? No they can go ahead. The brave boys of CNN and others were enschonced in Baghdad during the Gulf wars, but I don't see much coming from Moscow. Putin gave a couple of long speeches barely carried and characterized as "insane" and "historically inaccurate." That might be an accurate depiction, but those speeches provide an important insight into how Putin and others around him see the world, and Russia's relationship to it.  Worth knowing, I would think.

I have written about this before, some eight years ago:

It does not require a genius to see what is happening in the post-USA world of the Obamistas. Other actors, many of them ruthless opponents of Western values of democracy and liberty, are stepping in to fill the power vacuum and reshape the world--and do it while laughing at us. Of these actors, Putin is the most determined and committed to reforming the globe into a place much less congenial for those Western values, and much friendlier to Russia's rise to the top. His plan is exceedingly simple. No Snowden-like revelations required. Taking advantage of the weakness and self-loathing of the Obama misadministration, Putin is out to neutralize Europe and make it into an economic resource for Russia, e.g., gas sales, investments, access to high tech, and to ease the US out of the picture. NATO is to be seen for what it increasingly has become, to wit, a joke. 

 

With his cost-free move in Crimea, Putin has put on notice all the former republics of the old Soviet Empire. Their freedom of action is severely constrained; they must never go against the perceived interests of Russia OR of Russians. He is reasserting Moscow's predominance over the "Stans" aided by our precipitous withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan. In the Middle East, Putin is the savior of his Assad ally in Syria, and a behind-the-scenes force in getting the US and the West to give up on blocking Iran's nuclear ambitions.

I want Putin to have a major foreign policy reversal. I want the Ukrainians to triumph. My point is to make it irrelevant for the US. We should have the freedom of choice to decide what is in our interest not have Putin and others make it for us. We need to reestablish our energy and industrial independence. We need real leadership committed to Western values and strength.