Even more than the video of the young man, I feel Scottie’s powerful comments about the Ukraine situation … and the U.S. … need to be shared with as wide an audience as possible.
Enough Damn it, enough! The US and NATO has the ability to stop much of this, stop more of these kids suffering from watching their mothers burn to death. Think about what the rest of this kid’s life is going to be like. The US doesn’t have to declare war on Russia, the US doesn’t have to threaten to invade Russia. We simply need to say no more and close the airspace above Ukraine. Yes Russia will threaten to use nukes or biological weapons. But remember the idea of mutual destruction is the counter threat. We don’t need to storm and yell; we don’t need to threaten to go first. We do what we have always done and say if you start it with that, we will end you! All bets are off then. Why is it only Russia and Putin get to threaten and the US backs off. Nato…
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Nan's Notebook 
Oh Nan, I’m so tired of so much of humanity. It just seems never ending starting from days of old..Look at our species history…religious fanaticism, greed, lust for power, corruption, war for natural resources, racism, bigotry of all forms, hatred, everyday killings, animal abuse, child abuse, the Hitler’s, the Mussolinis, the trumps, the Putin’s, the MTGs, the Hawleys, and the Cruzes of the world and on and on it goes. It is just wearing me out.
Also if Poland can take on 3 million + refugees, I think we could do better than 100K.
I do think Putin is not going to stop with Ukraine and we and NATO need to nip this in the bud.
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It’s wearing me out too! One can’t help but wonder where things will be in another 20-30 years if all this *crap* continues.
And I TOTALLY agree with your last sentence!!!!
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I just left this comment on Scotties’ blog, and am repeating it here:
I am betting, Scottie, no American bullets have to fly. No bombs will have to be dropped. Maybe Putin will cry, “Go on!” but the real people fighting the real battles will surrender to a massive show of force by NATO and all its members. Right now, WE ARE ALL COWARDS! I have said this from the start. If we do not show up now, anything that comes later is in vain. DO WHAT IS RIGHT! Not what is merely prudent. This from an avowed pacifist.
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Our leaders (I declined to no include certain pronouns) announced to Putin and the world that we are terrified of him. What the eff did they expect? If Trump did not give sufficient notice that we would allow him to attack Ukraine, then this administration finished the deal.
One of our astute leaders observed that the war in Ukraine would stop when Putin withdraws. Where and when they expect that to happen, no one knows. Not even Putin.
If we are going to allow the threat of another world war or the use of nuclear weapons to dictate our future, then we don’t have one. We have already lost control to a madman who will only create more havoc. Any treaties or memorandum of understanding Putin had with the world are null and void. He draws a red line and steps across it to draw another one, while we fear doing anything to provoke him. We will waste our treasure and our arms in order to allow us to think we are doing something. When we are weakened by our own stupidity, he will be drawing red lines on our map.
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Spot on
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That is an astute observation.
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The US does not have enough military power to stop Putin, nor is the US capable of simply closing the Ukranian airspace. Generations of propaganda aimed at funding the extremely expensive US military budget and popular culture born from the minds of ordinary people who want to feel safe, seems to have alluded people to think the US military is allmighty. Not even NATO with all members has that power right now.
Russian propaganda has claimed for years, that the “west” is planning a war against Russia. This lie has been fed to the Russians for decades to justify all sorts of limitations on their liberty by the Putin gang. It has served him in clinging on to power in Russia, by appealing to the patriotic feelings of ordinary Russians and especially to the fears of their conservative minded citizens.
At the moment Russian war effort seems to be stalling, but we know, that Russia has ONLY involved some 200 000 soldiers in their “special operation” and by the look of it much of that force is armed not by their state of the art weaponry, rather the stuff, that is soon to become obsolete like T-72 tanks. As if they wanted to save the better stuff for later and run the war with stuff, that would soon become very expensive waste. This is how they fought in Tshetsenia and in Georgia. It is by far more “economic” way to wage war, than weilding full airsuperiority. But they have every capability to run that course as well.
We do not want to give Putin a casus belli to mobilize the full might of the Russian military. If the western armies would allow themselves to be goaded in to fight – even by merely proclaiming a no-flight zone in contested Ukranian airspace, that could mean, not only severe losses for the western fighters attempting to stop Russian fighters, but also that Russia might pull all it’s reserves to the fight. It might seem to the Russians like the lies of Putin administration were true. Not just to the die hard Putin supporters, but the entire nation and it is a well armed and trained population.
It may be easy from over seas in the US to think, that escalating the situation is both needed and possible. However, European countries even as members of NATO might not be as keen to move into that direction, even if they are the ones most to lose (after actual Ukranians) in case Putin wins in Ukraine.
The second most powerfull army in the NATO is Turkish. Erdogan and Putin share a bunch of values as authoritarian leaders and have been known to be buddies. Hungary is a perfect example of a country where conservative radicals have taken over in politics with the help of Russian money and internet capability.
Germany, France and Britain have tiny professional armies, that have been built for decades for intervention operations in their former colonies and third world countries. They and the US military even when put together are obviously unable to tackle with a guerilla force in some backwater developing country (like Afghanishtan, or Somalia, just to name a couple), they simply could not field enough trained men and equipment to face the cadre of the Russian military and if they attempted it, that would be WWIII.
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I so appreciate your comments, rautakyy. As someone who lives on the border of Russia, I’m sure you have your pulse on things that the rest of us only know via reading/hearing the news. Not only that, you have offered some thoughts that I doubt many of us have considered.
In any event, the specter of WW3 is far closer to reality that most of want to think about. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.
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Why, thank you. My comment was a bit long, but this is such a big issue.
Most of the destruction done to civillian targets by Russia is by artillery and ballistic missiles anyway, so declaring a no-fly zone would not achieve much, even if it was possible to maintain.
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How’s the KoolAid?
If you think the exercise we have just witnessed in Ukraine is an intentional ploy to drag the US into a shooting war, you have made some miscalculations. Russia only attacks those countries that lack a reasonable ability to fight back. If there was any inkling of an idea in Putin’s head that he could take on the US and survive, he would already be here and not there.
We are the only nation able to stand up and defend the rest of the world. We have far greater resources for the taking. We have politicians and citizens who have expressed a favorable opinion of Putin and his oligarchs, (but not so much for the people of Russia), We have a treasury and strong economy. Some folks here have a low opinion of democracy. The same people in the avant-garde of the assault on freedom for members of society who are ‘others.’ We are the single nation that Putin needs to get out of his way. So, by your estimation, Putin should be attacking us any day now. Trump put a bow on the package, but for some reason failed to deliver for him. That’s because Trump and his handlers, the Christian Nationalists, also miscalculated.
The majority of Americans love their democracy and our Republic. When we do have to fight it will not be because the brigade behind us will shoot us down for not fighting. We will fight because we have exhausted even the unreasonable arguments against it. We will have a consensus with our allies. And a determination to win.
Some of the earliest information I ever read on Putin was evaluating how dangerous he can be. He was compared to a cornered ret. A very dangerous rat, but a rat. He will not go down alone. He will take his oligarchs, the Trumps, anyone who stands with him, and the Russian people with him.
If he is offered a way out, do you think he will accept it?
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He will not go down alone. He will take his oligarchs, the Trumps, …
Oh PLEASE!! Take him! Take him!
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What does your Kool Aid analogy refer to? I never said there was a conspiracy to get the US to engage in the war, but that Russian propaganda is based on the “west” being the enemies of Russians and all the “traditional values”, and that Putin is the strong man protecting them and making Russia “great again”. If the West rushes in, unprepared Russians might believe those lies.
Russians are just as patriotic and eager as the people of USA to fight for high ideals.
In reality, however mighty the US military is, it is spread like little piece of butter on too big loaf of bread. All armies are formed of layers. Russia has sent to Ukraine a small task force consisting of peace time troops, but the real power behind the throne are the cadres of Russians who have served as conscripts, many of them for years and some of them in places like Tshetsenya. There the Russians won by decimating the whole country. Where has the US won a war since WWII? A lot of people have died in US air raids, though. They had sons and daughters too.
Besides, if the “rat” is cornered, it might do the most desperate things, like calling on those reserves, or even use nukes.
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I agree we’re not doing nearly enough — but I shudder to think where Ukraine would be if Trump were still President.
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Oh but … !! Don’t you remember that he was buddy-buddy with Putin? According to him, none of this would have happened had he still been “President.” *gag*
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Not only do I remember that Trump was buddy-buddy with Putin, but he agreed with Putin that NATO was a relic of the cold war and (according to John Bolton) would’ve withdrawn the US from NATO if he had been re-elected (which, of course, he still claims he was). Trump is nothing less than a TRAITOR.
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I’m going to take a slightly different tact than what has generally been aired. I’m going to suggest that what we’ve done – supplying arms, supplies, training, and the sanctions against Russia and various oligarchs, are all the intervention we should do at the moment.
I’m also going to suggest that a no-fly zone is, at least if we want to avoid WW3 with Russia, a silly thing to do and it sets us up to get more involved than we probably want to be at the moment. Ask yourself this: What should the West do if Russia shoots down a (or perhaps several) NATO jet enforcing a no-fly zone? Do we declare war? Do we let it go? Something else? It can start to get messy really quickly. Shooting down a Russian jet is sure to be seen as an act of war as well. If you enact a no-fly zone you better be prepared to declare war on Russia, otherwise the no-fly is just an empty bluff.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate what Putin is doing, that he’s reneged on the commitments that were given to Ukraine back in 1994, and the varieties of war crimes that are happening, but in the end I think it’s the people of Ukraine who stand to benefit the most if they actually manage to “win” (nobody ever wins in war) this war (which it looks like they could actually do.) I really don’t want to see the West dragged into another senseless war, this time with a nuclear power.
The Russians weren’t prepared for this war. They’ve already taken a staggering number of casualties and they don’t appear to be winning. That bodes well so far…
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I totally agree. I certainly would not want to see this escalate to a point where countries like China and India, were forced to choose their sides.
That said, Ukraine needs more help. Ammo, food, medicines, fuel and weapons.
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Nan, the Lord’s words are, “Return unto me.” Not, “Return to church.” How about an informal bible fellowship group? We read verse by verse through a book of the Bible and discuss anything relevant. In my town some groups are only 2-3 people. We share and listen.
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Arnold … why in the world would you add this comment which has NOTHING to do with the situation in Ukaine???? The ONLY reason I’m not deleting it is so you can see my response.
Please … stay on topic and stop evangelizing!!
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Sorry, was a friend-type suggestion and won’t happen again.
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Arnold, I hope you do not mind me saying, that as I, for one, have once read the Bible, I did not find it interresting enough literature to go through it again and honestly, I did not find from it anything at all even remotely relevant in regard to the situation in Ukraine.
Besides, reading and analyzing a text verse by verse often leads to losing the sight on context and ultimately missing the point of the story.
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Say away, and thanks for your comments. Our context is always Christ, not so much analysis.
The world is callous towards God; some folk will soften, most will grow thicker.
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