With an Unprovoked War of Aggression in Ukraine, Putin Must Be Destroyed
There is only one person who wants this.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is probably the most successful thief in world history having stolen his nation's wealth to the tune of estimated hundreds of billions of dollars, wants war. It is time to put the mad man down.
As if interfering in democratic elections around the world wasn't enough... Heck, the United States has done just as much. As if assassinating and jailing his political rivals wasn't enough... All such diseased visions to empire have done as much.
Putin, an old KGB cold warrior, dreams of the good old days of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He believes his stolen wealth can save him, indeed that it can take an economy which he alone owns, which he alone has ruined, which is smaller than that of the Maldives, and extrapolate it into some grand vision of Russian greatness.
Hitler's visions were similar and equally as mad.
When your fever dream, fueled by corrupt wealth, gains adherents and sycophants, a mad idea can go viral. But nobody wants this except the corrupt dictator, Vladimir Putin.
His own people are being arrested in protests across Russia by the thousands, despite having been warned against such protests. These Russian citizens rightly see Ukraine as a sister nation. There are family ties across the border. Russian people can no more rationalize a war against Ukraine than killing their cousins.
People in Ukraine of all stripes, men and women young and old are lining up to receive AK47s and the training with which to kill invaders in the streets of their home towns. It is truly a Red Dawn in Ukraine. Everyone who is able must fight, or suffer the consequences.
There was a time when Americans confronted communism at it's face value. Ronald Reagan, who called Russia the essence of evil in the world, is rolling over in his grave right now. The conservative icon fades in history and rots.
Donald Trump says this war criminal is a genius.
Tucker Carlson cheer-leads for this rabid dog.
They worship at the alter of greed, people. Putin has for decades been secretly funneling illegal money into Republican politics in this nation. I can remember at least one large contingent of Republicans who traveled to Russia to line up at the trough, but Putin shunned them and had them grovel before his underlings.
Those who want to defend Putin are akin to the America Firsters of World War II. Henry Ford was invested in Germany to the tune of $8 million plus. Charles Lindbergh supported protecting the white race and urged U.S. neutrality in the war. They supported Nazi Germany. Only history has shown them to be the wealthy quislings that they truly were.
I would not suggest that Republicans need to support the president the way nearly all Democrats lined up Behind George W. Bush when he lied us into war. That, apparently, was a different time. That was a time when Phil Donahue was canceled from the liberal network MSNBC for having anti-war guests on. That was a time when I wanted to go to a candle-light vigil in a CHURCH and was warned by my immediate supervisor that, "I wouldn't do that if I were you." So, it's different when the United States does it, I guess. We were not free to disagree. We were called anti-American then.
So what is Donald Trump now?
What is Tucker Carlson now?
What is Fox News, where many of their respected news men have resigned or been fired?
I suggest that those who support Putin in this country should be treated the way I was back then. I suggest Fox News cancel Carlson the way MSNBC canceled Donahue. I suggest politicians taking the Russian side be voted out. I suggest politicians taking Putin's dirty money are the worst kind; the most corrupt of a bad lot.
As a news man for ten years and as a criminal investigator for the state police for twenty, I always found this to be true: Do not look at what you see, but why you see it. In these realms, the "why" is usually greed, which my departed father always instructed was the "only" problem in the world.
After Iraq, what legitimacy does the United States have to call out an illegal war? This is where George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's lies have got us. How tragic when Colin Powell's integrity was used to sell an illegal war. It is easier to attack a state without weapons of mass destruction than one which actually could launch a nuclear attack against this country.
I am sad and angry as I watch Ukranian civilians signing up for neighborhood protection units. As their people flee for refuge in NATO countries. I wish the United States would do more. And I believe the U.S. will do more. Congress, odd to say, needs to be on the American side of this conflict.
The Russians, by all reporting, are trying to capture and kill Ukranian President Volodymir Zelenskyy. The west's goal should be to do the same for Putin.
Nobody wants this war. The Ukranians don't want it. The Russian people don't want it. Nearly the entire world is united against Russia now. Putin's own soldiers are being ordered to kill a kindred people. How can they fight like that? These are not the terrorists Putin claims, but Russian speaking, democracy loving, Ukranians who find living in a state where there is freedom of speech maybe better than living under the heel of Putin.
I get that the United States and NATO are towing a line that refuses to throw gasoline on a situation that could spiral out of control in a global catastrophe. Putin is betting on this. But what he did not bet on is that Russians have no heart for killing their neighbors. That Ukranians will not lie down and be subjugated.
The free world has to do what it can to help Ukraine.
And Putin must be found and killed. The sick dog must be put down.