Who GAF?

 

Russia Invaded Ukraine. So What??

Or words to that effect. That's what the less-informed (or outright stupid) commentariat on a hundred sites are asking at the moment.

Pay attention.

1) Russia is a nuclear power.

More to the point, the #2 nuclear power on the planet. Despite getting their teeth handed to them after the own-goal of 80 years of Communism's irredeemable flaws, they still think they missed out on the big colonialization era. Most of their conquests were neighbors, rather than far-flung client states, and what's left was nothing to write home about from 1920-1990.

So when a substantial portion of their army crosses international borders to kill people and break things, you ought to pay attention.

Not least of which because Mother Russia is currently in range of every other nuclear power in existence. (For those who were busy doodling or fapping off in the back of their civics classes, that club would be: the U.S., (formerly great) Britain, France, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, and the Norks. And any minute now (thanks Obozo and fat Bill) the Iranians. Every one of them could manage to land a blow to Russia with nukes, and every one of them is in range of Russia's ICBMs. As are a lot of other non-nuclear countries, including arguably, every country that matters, which would be the Top 50 out of 180-190 or so.

2) But the Cold War is over, right?

Back at ya: So what? Nobody told Putin. As a former KGB assassin who misses the glorious Soviet Union that was, he's been forcibly repatriating all the old satellites back into the Sov...er, Russian Federation at gunpoint all along. Ukraine is merely the latest. Anyone: See if you can guess why the Baltic States - Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia - are getting a bit nervous about now. Vlad's running out of territories to conquer back into the fold. Oh, for the civics fapping crowd: they're all full NATO members now. An attack on any one of them constitutes the opening of WWIII, by law and custom. Or else NATO dissolves, and it's 1938 all over again, with a military dictatorship on the prowl east of Poland. Again.

Look in the dictionary under appeasement, and note that the guy most responsible for WWII (after Adolf himself) got dealing with his enemy all horribly wrong, plunged the entire world into a world war, and after finally being replaced, went home afterwards and quite decently died in a matter of months, leaving the rest of the world to suffer the consequences of his jackassery.

Pay no attention to that senile, doddering old fool currently and illegally installed in the White House.

3) Who gives a flying fig about NATO?

That would be three nuclear powers, and about 80% of what we jokingly refer to as the civilized world. I.e. the parts not worshipping trees, headhunting, growing dope as the national crop, humping goats and little boys, or running through jungles with bones through their noses. When that important part of the world gets a cold, the U.S. sneezes. Oil (and thus energy) prices skyrocket. Financial markets crater.  You might have noticed we've already watched gasoline go from under $3/gallon to pushing $5 hereabouts in just the last year. And tell me how robust either the dollar, or the overall economy are already. Then look up The Great Depression and see if it rings any bells. The last one led directly to a world war that ended with the deliberate release of Canned Sunshine. The next world war is likely to open with that. Let me know when the penny drops for you.

4) But nobody on either side is us, and they're all bad guys.

I repeat the title: Who GAF? Putin running a crippled, hamstrung second-rate second world nation with nuclear weapons is tolerable. Putin riding war elephants and rampaging across the European continent (and people, and economies) without a care in the world is not. Thus anything that dick-punches him is in our interest (short of an unforeseen release of the aforementioned Canned Sunshine). Why's that? Well, let's let Tom Clancy's fictional Admiral Painter explain it to you simply and succinctly.

Anything that hamstrings Putin, weakens him, bleeds him, is good for us, and bad for him. Because it makes him vulnerable. Introspective rather than adventurous. More worried about food tasters than external threats. (And under "paranoia" in the dictionary, there's a picture of Russia.) And their paranoia isn't all imaginary. Regarding Ukraine, they have some reasons for an itchy trigger finger. That doesn't make them not delusional. But it explains where their psychotic fear comes from. But if they pull off a second Afghanistan, and come home with cleats all up in their junk, they stop being a bear in a china shop, and start worrying about a far older problem, which haunts them in their bones.

And Ukrainian president Zelensky is a total putz. Buuuuuuuut...

He's not wrong when he cries "Rape!" about being invaded. Even if he's a crook, in bed with Gropey Dopey and his doper son. This is 2022, not 1622 (nor even 1942), and countries don't get to just walk into other countries without good cause, and conquer them back into their own fold. (Pentacle Would-Be Democracy Builders: Call your office.)

Moscow's puppet ruler was driven out of Ukraine in a hail of molotov cocktails a few years back. One third of the country may miss him; another third may love the new crook. But the last third just wants to be left the f**k alone, in peace, to make their own way, and those guys are going to explain that to Russia the same way we explained it to King George III circa 1775ff.

Those are the guys I'm rooting for, and for exactly the same reasons. Gravity took the communists out in 1990. Molotovs did it again last decade. They're not inclined to give Putin a free pass just because he executes a Plan 37, flips the chessboard over, and pulls a gun. They're going to start kicking him in the dick every chance they get, over and over again. FTR, Putin's army is about 500K guys. He's supposedly sent in 150K-200K for this little excursion. That one-third of Ukraine disinclined to acquiesce to his intention is somewhere between 10,000,000 and 15,000,000 folks. Putin can conquer the entire Ukraine military, and still lose at this, day after day, forever, for decades. Unless Putin is willing to nuke the entire country, and kill every swinging Richard there that opposes him, which would move him to the Bronze Trophy in the worldwide Genocide Olympics, and push Hitler's Germany completely off the platform. So yeah, under those circumstances, I'ma root for any little guy willing to step up and say, "F**K no, you aren't doing that to my country yet again.

We would also point out that unlike the -stans, Ukraine is Eastern Orthodox, which is to say Eastern Christian, as opposed to Muslim crazy, and provides a strategic landbridge in both directions. Ask Frankistan, Deutschistan, Norwayistan, Swedenistan, and Britistan, among others, how well that whole Muslim invasion of Europe over the last few years is going for them at the moment, even with an entire ocean between them and their history-long blood-enemies. I'll wait while you look that up.

5) Cui bono?

Who's pushing this war? Who's been trying every way they know how, for weeks, to set it off? Who benefits?

For J. Kb @ GFZ

Gina Carrano posted an answer. And she's correct. To a point.

COVID failure news? Gone.

But it's far more than just that.

Inflation news? Gone. Or better yet, scapegoated onto Putin. (Pay attention: At this point, the dog's tail becomes self-wagging.)

Economy bad news? Gone.

Canadian trucker fallout news? Gone.

American trucker convoy news? Gone.

Durham tagging Shrillary and the DNC for spying on Trump news? Gone.

2020 Election shenanigans news? Gone.

Sketchy Affirmative Action SCOTUS nominee news? Gone.

Other Countries taking advantage of the chaos and our flailing policy: Free Pass! (And then they kick back another 10% to the Big Guy. ;) So what happened is, Ukrainian thieves got outbid by Beijing pirates, and thrown under the bus.)

Everything else outside the DC Narrative (other than local traffic, the weather - caused by global warming/climate change/racism/transphobia, of course - that building on fire or a police chase on the freeway, and/or who's fucking who or who raped who in Hollyweird): Gone. Gone. Gone.

Wagging the dog: 24/7/365, until mid-terms, and all the way to 2024. It's the only rabbit left to pull out of their hat, unless they release anthrax, Ebola, and a scorching case of airborne herpes.

The DemoCommunists here have two fears:

a) Biden lives until 2024.

b) He doesn't.

One is a disaster. The other is a catastrophe. (It's anyone's guess which is which.) Gallup had to install a basement to capture Gropey Dopey's approval ratings, which have now gone lower than the deepest coal mines in Appalachia, and threaten to hit the earth's volcanic magma any day, unleashing the District of Columbia Caldera, triggering a massive volcanic eruption in Lafayette Park, and wiping out the DNC in 50 states and 7 territories, no matter how many imaginary votes they submit in 2022 and 2024.

And they just can't be having that. Because their power and maintaining it endlessly is all that matters, your wishes matter not at all, and how many people worldwide they have to kill to stay in clover is merely a statistic.

QED

Dear Vladimir,

If you can't spot the sucker at the poker table, it's you.

[Editorial: If this was written above your level, or you couldn't read it all the way to the end, flaunt your ignorance in Comments. You pay nothing to read it, and I earn nothing by typing it, so think about what it is that compels you like a lemming to the sea* to jump on your junk with cleats on before you post. I look forward each day to see the 10,000 people who read what I post, just to find the seven commenters who'll unfailingly miss the point of the whole thing, then pull their diapers down and decorate the walls with their best efforts. Because it's never "Um, Aesop, you might have totally missed this fact which contradicts what you wrote." No, because that would evidence logic and critical thinking, and iron sharpens iron. It's nearly always "Blah! Blah! Blah! I didn't read anything there because I already disagree with it, so I didn't read it all, because no reasons, so there!" This is why all cats, including lions and tigers, have scratching posts. Everyone in life serves a purpose.]

Public school education FTW.

*{For the three retards that will make that comment, I'm well aware that the original example is from a debunked and faked Disney nature film. The greater point of the metaphor nonetheless stands on the merits. Don't make me use my hind claws too. Because after that comes marking my territory. Veterinarians and zoologists will catch my drift.}