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Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Fade to Black in Ukraine
2023-05-24
A taste:
[JamesHowardKunster] “Following the ouster of Mr. Trump in 2020, this new-new-left had exactly what it had been clamoring for, a liberal Democrat in the White House. Given the sense of impending catastrophe at present, it may be difficult to remember precisely how much sniveling bullshit went into selling Joe Biden.” — Rob Urie

Have you noticed that the president of Ukraine (or, governor of America’s fifty-first state), Mr. Zelensky, has been globe-trotting for weeks: London, Helsinki, Paris, Hiroshima? That’s because this is one of those months when years happen; the world is changing at hyper-speed. He seems to be running scared, a little bit, trying to keep ahead of the changing game. What sounded like a great idea to a certain claque of so-called neo-cons in our country — to use Ukraine as a bear trap — has instead rather suddenly revealed Europe’s and America’s manifold bankruptcies and revolted the whole rest of the world outside of Western Civ. Oh, the wonder and nausea!

Try to imagine Mr. Zelensky’s predicament. Mighty America and redoubtable Europe conned the former comedian to thinking that if he went along with a genius scheme to ruin Russia and knock Vlad Putin off the global gameboard, his sad-sack country would be transformed into something like Ukro-Disneyworld, while he, Mr. Z, would be lionized and made rich beyond his wildest imaginings. His backup was the greatest hegemonic power the world has ever seen. The game was called Let’s You and Him Fight.

The poor schlemiel fell for it. He let NATO (that is, the USA) set-up, equip, and train the largest army in Europe, including battalions of bad-ass, hard-core Ukro-Nazis — who had previously been so useful in the American-sponsored 2014 Maidan “color revolution.” Mr. Z followed the US State Department’s orders to rain down rockets and artillery on Russian-speakers who lived in his own eastern provinces. He formally applied for membership in the NATO club. His country received billions of US dollars without audit oversight, just screaming to be creamed off by Ukraine’s leadership — who, after all, deserved a little something for all these goings-along. What could go wrong?
Posted by:KBK

#5  I'd say Ukrainians killing ethnic Russians in the Donbas and burning ethnic Russians alive in that building in Odessa in 2014 wasn't lost on the Russian leadership...not to mention NATO encroachment eastward.

We've come a long way from 2+4, baby.
Posted by: DooDahMan   2023-05-24 23:36  

#4  A useful summary, Enver Slager8035.
Posted by: trailing wife   2023-05-24 23:16  

#3  Poor lad drank the Russian disinformation Kool-Aid. The war was going to happen regardless of the USA, Europe or NATO. For Putin, Ukraine does not exist outside of Russia.

Putin had planned to slowly absorb Ukraine, ala Belarus, w/ Pres. Yanukovich at the helm via corruption and increased dependence on Russia. But the Ukrainians rebelled when Yanukovich reneged on an promise to search association w/ the EU. From that moment on, Putin switched to military conquest. Biden's only contribution was to show incompetence and weakness, allowing Putin to think he could get away with a full scale invasion w/o too many consequences.
Posted by: Enver Slager8035   2023-05-24 22:57  

#2  Eggs/Omellete
Posted by: Frank G   2023-05-24 20:58  

#1  What could go wrong?

A couple hundred thousand dead and counting.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2023-05-24 19:24  

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