Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Wednesday, June 1, 2022

Putler's War on Europe

Thomas Friedman talked to a number of European diplomats and leaders and found out that's how they see it:

I’ve been writing nonstop about the Ukraine war ever since Russia invaded on Feb. 24, but I confess that it took coming to Europe and meeting with politicians, diplomats and entrepreneurs here for me to fully grasp what happened. You see, I thought Vladimir Putin had invaded Ukraine. I was wrong. Putin had invaded Europe.

He shouldn’t have done that. This could be the biggest act of folly in a European war since Hitler invaded Russia in 1941.

I only fully understood this when I got to this side of the Atlantic. It was easy from afar to assume — and probably easy for Putin to assume — that eventually Europe would reconcile itself to the full-scale invasion Putin launched against Ukraine on Feb. 24, the way Europe reconciled with his 2014 devouring of Ukraine’s Crimean peninsula, a remote slice of land where he met little resistance and set off limited shock waves.

Wrong, wrong, wrong
.

He points out the things that have happened in a short period time: Europeans adopting sanctions that also hurt them. European nations throwing their borders open to Ukranian refugees. Sweden and Finland applying to join NATO. Germany banging a uey and rearming. He didn't mention that there has been discussions about forming a European army, but that may be coming so long as the Russians pose the threat that they do.

2 comments:

Frank Wilhoit said...

It would be nice to think that Friedman's overconfidence had taken a dent too deep to bang out.

As SecDef Austin pointed out -- with a forthrightness and courage that are almost never seen today -- any good outcome requires Russia to be reduced to a condition in which she cannot aspire to project power. There is no direct way to do this, only indirect ones, which will take time that no one has and will cause collateral damage, one way or another, that no one can take responsibility for.

But Little Tommy had a epiphany, of sorts, so it's all good, right? ...Right?

Comrade Misfit said...

I haven’t forgotten about “ Friedman Units” of time.

So no, I don’t uncritically accept what he says.