fading glimmers

 It looks like Putin has foregone any attempt to be a little sophisticated about taking Ukraine and is now going to blow the place to shit with his many bombs and cannons and missiles.  I read an article a few days ago and it predicted this behavior if he didn't get his way right away citing the experience in Syria.

Ah remember the Arab spring? What a bust that turned out to be.  As part of that the Syrians arose against their odious dictator, Bashar al-Assad.  At first it looked like they would succeed but then Hezbollah came to the aid of Bashar and not much later Putin came knocking on the door, and he just bombed the shit out of the rebels.  The guy writing the article said it should come as no surprise to us.  The author was an Arab, and complained about how we were making such a hoopla about Ukraine, but we never seemed to care much about the Syrian rebels.  Was it because they were Arabs?  Most likely yes.

There were extenuating circumstances.  Syria was in the midst of a civil war which was part of the foment going on in the middle east, and while half of the rebels were those good freedom loving people who we so admire the other half were jihadi types.

Now that I think of it we didn't raise much of a fuss when the Russkies took back the Crimea.  Well Ukraine had some terrible kleptocrat, and that area had always been kind of Russian anyway, and Putin, at the time he didn't seem so bad.  He came out of the time of the drunken Yeltsin and Russia coming off the wheels, and many of us, including me, thought well maybe they need a strongman, and he may be brutal, but at least he is sane.  That latter part turned out not to be true.  

And what about all those refugees Poland and Hungary (both headed by right wing dictator types) are taking in, and isn't that like so generous and makes you proud to be a human.  But they have also been beating back middle eastern refugees with the butts of their rifles and while regretful, we don't worry too much about that.

One thing is how sudden this whole Ukraine invasion was.  One day there was peace and in weeks the Russkies were running in their tanks like in broad daylight, right in the middle of a busy thoroughfare.  And another one is how much the Ukrainians look so much like us.

Just one thing Beagles, the oligarchs have not put Putin in power, he has put them in power, he can make or break any of them.  But it does seem likely that it will take somebody on the inside to take him down.  I am wondering about the generals.  Not a big fan of the military as you know, but they do stand for something besides the dear leader and I remember how some of the generals that Trump put in helped to take him out.

One thing that has surprised me is how powerful these sanctions are, toppling the ruble and all that.  I don't quite understand it but it seems to work powerfully and quickly.  If we can undo Putin with it, can it be used to keep China's hands off Hong Kong and Taiwan?

In the glimmer of hope thing, well it's certainly not helping Trump, and Biden is gaining a tad bit in his dismal polling.  He is looking like Bush the First when he assembled the force that forced Hussein out of Kuwait.  Of course he lost the next election after that.

Thanks for the cartoon Old Dog.  Putin is looking strong now but when this over and the Russian economy is in the toilet, and they are saddled with a big country where everybody hates them, maybe then Putin's dick may go limp.