We know people don’t like us to stray too far beyond the boundaries of the 24/680 but we’ll admit the potential of one nation invading another and the possible ripple effect of that action gives us pause.
See, wars and invasions are inherently bad, with explosives and projectiles and stuff in use and proven to have adverse affects on humans – and this isn’t the first time we’ve rolled down the Russo-Ukrainian highway.
So we’ve dragged out some old maps and looked back to 2014 for hints of what routes may be taken as Vlad The Lad and the Russian Bear flex their claws and look hungrily at their Ukrainian neighbors, and how the rest of the world is likely to respond.
Why? Because the world has rolled down that road before, too – and perhaps one in ten Americans can tell you what happened in 1914 and 1939. More should be able to recount what happened in those cataclysmic years but as we’ve said before America is largely a nation of amnesiacs and wars tend to distract us from bass fishing and football.
The locals do appear ready and willing to address the more mundane matters of the age: wayfaring pups, high school sports, locally-generated Jeopardy whizzes – that kinda thing. It’s safer conversational faire. Scanning social media we’ve gleaned that local kids continue to push the capacity of their nasal cavities – carefully working marbles, coins, and balloons into their nasal passages – giving parents a fright and emergency crews something to do between more serious calls.
We still remember the tyke who – patiently at first and then with the enthusiasm of a coke-starved Disco Queen – systematically snorted a line of red pepper flakes at a popular local restaurant, touching off a hydrous display rivaling that of the Bellagio. Mom Screams. Kid Panic. A line of pepper flakes leading to where our Intrepid Explorer has taken refuge in the restaurant bathroom – paramedics shaking their heads and topping their mental list of Nasal Munitions kids are likely to experiment with.
Less innocent is our recently trending willingness to inflict the death penalty on our neighbor or random interloper – people yelling all kinds of apparently rehearsed lines of lethality at boat ramp line-jumpers, Costco space violators, O Early Thirty Mow-and-Blo crews and garbage can rattlers.
Apparently, “I’ll Kill You” or “I’ll Shoot You” has replaced “Do you want to step outside and settle this?” as our chosen tagline for conflict resolution and, while this might be chalked up to the prevalence of geared up, double-tap warriors in tacticool apparel gracing our small screens of late, people appear willing to back up the threat.
The morning of Febr. 14 a truck driver stopped at a red light in Concord when a Chevrolet Tahoe pulled up alongside – the driver yelling obscenities at the truck driver for stopping at the signal. Tahoe Man then allegedly produced a black semi-automatic handgun and began yelling that people “get shot for driving like that” while waving the gun around in the air.
The truck driver was able to provide a description of his volunteer Driving Education Instructor and, after an attempt to elude police, officers eventually stopped the Tahoe and detained the driver. They found a black handgun behind the rear seat of the vehicle and an additional .38 caliber pistol in the bed.
CPD said the driver was a convicted felon. He was positively identified, arrested, booked and transported to the Martinez Detention Facility but, yeah… still.
We don’t know about you but we’ve got weightier issues on our minds – like Ukraine and those red pepper flakes – than to have to spend time worrying about whether we’re going to have to pick lead out of our liver because we opted to stop at a traffic signal.
Perhaps putting things in their proper perspective would help, choosing to consider global affairs and other issues before us and then indulging in a little bass fishing or football, and not treating every possible life occurrence as precursor to a gunfight – would also be a help.
Didn’t know about a burgeoning nasal crisis. Thanks for the heads up!
Watching it too. Russia would exploit its overwhelming superiority in land, sea and air forces, attacking simultaneously on several fronts, from the north-east, the Donbas and Crimea. Ground troops in Belarus – under cover of their air superiority – would spearhead a drive south to Kyiv. Ukraine’s encircled army would fight and so would its civilians but if you just read the maps and look at the numbers, they’d eventually be forced to surrender.
Interested in seeing or hearing any scholarly evaluation of the scenario.
Another one for us to avoid at all costs.
I believe the Afghans and the Vietnamese have been overrun and occupied a few times. It’s an old story with an unhappy outcome for the occupier. I find it hard to believe Putin will try to swallow the whole enchilada.
If Russia does invade we should fly a squadron of C5’s in with payloads of vodka instead of Stingers. Drop the hootch over those armored units and they’ll be paralyzed within a week and no one gets hurt. Just thinking strategiically.
Just hoping to get through the day without problem. I’ll take care of Putin when I get back on Tuesday.
Putin is an evil man. Always be weary of evil people.
Naked aggressio and a return to 1919. Pretty much the Putin way.
So far the world is condeming Putin for this.
My infantryman father returned from the ETO after World War II with the realization that a government really could systematically murder millions of its own people in the name of the state and that this country needed to keep an eye on Joe Stalin and the Russians.
Interesting to watch the opening chess moves.
Tranche warfare
Those of us of a certain age remember that Ukraine was de facto ruled by Russia as part of the U.S.S.R. for decades. Yet oddly no U.S. president did anything about it and it didn’t seem to disturb the rest of us. I guess with so much of our population not having grown up worried about nuclear war and instead cheering on U.S. military involvement here, there, and everywhere, risking nuclear war for the sake of intervening in a conflict that has zero to do with our national interest is A-OK. Good job, Hunter’s pappy, your earning his salary!
Hunter Biden is somehow the subject in this? You may want to expand your reading list.
RUSSIANS have terminated my MTV. No Comcast no internet tonight! That’s the last straw. The walking American dead are coming for you Pootie!
I have to wonder if those grinning idiots in the Better Russian Than a Democrat shirts are re-thinking their decision about now.
Good one. Made me think of this: “You can have my weapon when you pry it from my cold dead hands”…and the Bug in the MIB movie responded, “your proposal is acceptable”. Let’s be thoughtful with our discourse or is it “mindful” these days? 🙂
“If you don’t like the news…go out and make some of your own” (Scoop Nisker)
Protesters in 50+ Russian cities made the news today, notwithstanding a Firestone station response from the police. 50+ Russian cities! Knowing the police response!
And, yes, the reaction of the Russian people to this invasion has been extraordinary so far…
Keeping my mind clear and ready for the usual parrying and propaganda. It is evident that Russian forces are moving forward with Putin’s plan and paying the price. It’s hard to get a sense of where everything is and who is doing what. As usual, some brave journalists are risking much to attempt to cover the story. I’m thinking of them and peace loving people and hope a man committed to waging war on a neighboring nation corrects himself or is corrected soon.
Given the political corruption of US intelligence in previous US adventures (Chile, Iran Contra, Viet Nam, Greece, Japan, WMD, etc) it is EXTRAORDINARY how PUBLICLY accurate the real-time forecast of naked Russian aggression has been. Some Russians in the know are seriously doubting Putin or how else would we know this so publicly? Putin is bested at his own propaganda game!
The colors of Ukraine are flying over or being projected onto prominent sites in many capitals of the free world tonight!