Who Really Needed Putin to be Successful in Ukraine?
Nobody needed that more than people like Schumer, Pelosi, Lindsey Graham, Lynn Cheney, Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, and Adam Kinzinger.
A couple of comments on Facebook turned into a line of thought:
I get the line of thought that the Russo-Ukraine conflict could set the world on a path to WWIII - but given the shockingly poor performance of the Russian Army, I don't see that happening.
The only way WWIII starts is if Putin uses nukes in any form.
Russia's poor performance in conquering a country that was seen as, and if all the hype about Putin’s army was to be believed, should have been a pushover, has reset the focus from a global threat of world war to that of more of a regional conflict. Had Russia blown through Ukraine in a Hitlerian-like Blitzkrieg, the global threat would have been more credible but it is clear that America, for all her weakness in leadership, can still project power around the world more effectively than Russia can across their own border with a neighboring country.
Putin was largely unmolested in his military build up along the Ukrainian border. He had all the time in the world, and he allegedly had spent tons and tons of rubles rebuilding the mighty Russian Army that crashed after the fall of the USSR.
Unless Putin is holding back his best, his Ukrainian adventure was (and is) a massive FAIL.
I can’t believe he is holding back; his increasing brutality seems largely driven by his embarrassment. I read last week where Putin has arrested the intel guys in charge of collecting intelligence in Ukraine and he is most certainly not pleased with his commanders on the ground, recalling several for “discussions”.
Maybe we should fire our own intel people because we seem to have information just a bad as Putin got. I guess ours is too focused on the Trump family, the scourge of militant school board moms and Twitter criminals to be concerned with areas of potential conflict where American military personnel might be deployed.
It certainly appears the most prominent casualty in the West, due to Putin’s failure, is the narrative in the US that “the Soviets are reborn, and we must go to war with Russia to protect the world”. You can gauge this failure by the increase of the use of the term “traitor”, and the phrases “Putin apologist” and “Russian asset” to describe anyone not fully aboard the “Bomb Moscow” train. It appears the insults from the Democrats who are invested in Ukraine and the neocons who love dropping bombs increase in proportion to their frustration.
Want to know who supports Putin?
It is these people.
They NEEDED Putin to be ruthlessly successful to support their narrative.
Nobody is more disappointed in Putin’s performance than Schumer, Pelosi, Lindsey Graham, Lynn Cheney, Mitt Romney, Sean Hannity, and Adam Kinzinger.
These are people who want you to pay a Galeries Lafayette (perhaps the most luxurious department store in the world) price for a Hickory Flat, Mississippi Dollar General Store (most certainly NOT the Galeries Lafayette) war.
It also makes it all the clearer that the US and NATO could have stopped this conflict before it started - if we only had good intelligence and sober, reasoned leadership. Projection of power is more than soldiers, ships, and aircraft. It is, as Natan Sharansky noted, knowing the other guy has a knife but convincing him that you are the most willing to use your knife.
This is a failure of both Putin to execute, the West to stop him from executing, and the world leadership to anticipate either.
This dithering is leaving the world rudderless and powerless to stop a conflict that was (and still is) entirely stoppable. We are stuck in some sort of purgatory where we can’t seem to muster the energy, intellect, and courage to find a way out – and as seems to be the case with modern conflicts, it is being allowed to go on far longer than it should, increasing and expanding the humanitarian tragedies.
The only way to stop conflicts like this is to restore Pax Americana before it is gone. A muscular foreign policy backed up by Western leadership willing to use the knife (and knowing when to use it) is the only protection from despots who electively engage in unprovoked wars.
That doesn’t mean America goes to war at the drop of a hat. It means when we do, we make a calm, logical and reasoned case for why we need to go, then we go in, break things and kill people, and then get out, leaving behind an enemy who knows he has been defeated.
The problem is, we're living a country led by elected petty despots who electively engage in unprovoked wars against their own citizens. If we can't correct that here, there's no way we can project the strength to protect any of the rest of the world from it.
Without question, neo-cons and supporters of the military-industrial complex are gaining financially and in popularity due to the 24/7 assault on American intelligence being broadcast by ABC, CBS, FOX, NBC, PBS, and NPR. Obviously, Russia had the weaponry and the ability to destroy Kiev weeks ago. Since we are captive to dishonest propagandists who hand-feed us their version of the news; we have no idea of what is going on in Ukraine or what negotiations have taken place between Russia and Ukraine. Without NATO (i.e., the U.S.A.) interference, the Russia-supporting eastern parts of Ukraine would now be peacefully part of Russia. Zelenskyy has made it clear he is willing to agree to never join NATO if that is satisfactory to Russia. Some may remember that was allegedly the issue that started the war.
The New World Order is causing thousands of needless deaths and millions of dollars in damage to promote its agenda.