Russia and Ukraine

And the drumbeat of the west

Perhaps the kamikaze method of covid resistance over the past two years has brought my patience and trust to an extreme low.

When I hear that Russia will invade Ukraine, I want some variables attached to the declaration. Dates, for example. Methods of invasion. The exact circumstances under which the invasion would be triggered, and the stated goals of such an invasion.

But alas, we are not hearing these particulars. Instead we simply get assertions that Mr. Putin is about to give the order. Well how long until that prediction can be declared wrong, and who will repent for having offered such a drumbeat for war? Surely we cannot find ourselves five years down the line, being told the same thing by the same people. Well, they might say, Putin just hasn’t attacked yet. But the yet is everything in this case. A headline on the BBC cites German intel that Russia is ready to attack, but hasn’t yet made the decision to. Since when can an absence of the decision to go to war be spun as an iminent invasion?

NPR airs a brief interview with a Ukrainian on her own turf (the suggestion intended by the liberal station is that they have plucked a random lady off the street, and this is a representative sentiment), and she states that only with the help of the United States can Ukraine beat Russia back. No discussion as to why an invasion would occur, only an assumption that it would, and that the United States would have to intervene on behalf of Ukraine. It is just an intuition of mine, and from my experience of NPR listeners (for example), that there will be now in common parlance this recycled, thoughtless accusation about Russia that it fully intends on and intended to invade its neighbor.

My prediction is that no such invasion will take place, but that by the time we have moved to a different anti-Putin (anti-Russian) narrative, the men and women who took part in this particular war mongering will have shape shifted and slithered away from responsibility. Why are we allowing talk of war? Why are we doing this — just out of Afghanistan?

Again, it may be my distinct lack of patience for headlines and people at the moment. But this Russian business has all the signs of the same thoughtless and compliant line-toeing as did the covid hysteria.