Being born and raised post WW2 (late baby-boomer it seems) - a father that fought that war and a mother that lived it in invaded zone in France - I got to learn along the years how cruel, ominous and devastating it has been among the European countries and most of all their people.
That picture indeed reminds me, among others, of the infamous Nuremberg Trial documentary. Documentaries that SHOULD still be used as educational material in colleges and high schools.
As individuals raised in countries 'at peace' we can hardly fathom the desperation felt by all these people fleeing the horrors of death and destruction that are bestowed upon their lives by an invading army of barbarians.
We MUST welcome them survivors.
Our leaders MUST take actions and provide Ukraine with the necessary means to fight and reappropriate their country, their land and their homes.
I approve of the former Prime Minister from Finland Alexander Stubb when he says Finland should quickly join the OTAN, implying that the OTAN ought to be willing to act accordingly to what we now are facing: the beginning of a World War. The third.
And we mustn't be fooled: Putin will never lend an ear to any kind of peace middle-ground.
Medvedev said it himself: they now aim at eradicating the Ukrainians and what their resisting and independence spirit represents. Meaning that Poland will most probably be the next step in the Russian war against the so-called 'Western decadence', which will obviously involve the whole Europe.
Yes, these autocrats are going that far into the foolish grandeurs. And to them the means are just cannon fodder, and it goes from conscripted soldiers (mostly uneducated/untrained countryside poor people) to women and their children.
So yes - again - we are facing what our (grand) parents faced: barbarism on its way, ready to march one border to the next no matter the costs, least of all people’s lives. For the sole purpose of pleasing a paranoid maniac.
Does this ring a bell?
7 comments:
Every word you wrote makes sense.
The West is trying to avoid WWIII, but they can't. It's already here. The cyber attack on Finland is proof that Putin will cross lines until the West finally says "Enough."
Putin's next move - besides having now already dropped chemical weapons on Mariupol - will be to fire long-range missiles and rockets on that entire area of Ukraine until it is nothing but dust. Then he'll send his tanks and troops in. He'll stop with Eastern Ukraine...for a few years. Then he'll hit Poland.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
~ William Butler Yeats
It absolutely rings and bell and has me scared shitless!
@Pat: my thoughts exactly. The longer we fail to handle this escalation that has already led to war the lesser we have a chance to master its outcome.
@Rick: scaring us all is precisely at the center of that dictator's intentions and means. All the more reasons to focus on the bravest of example that the Ukrainian people shown us from the very start: standing not only as a nation but also as defenders of values to achieve. This is why I particularely like and believe in the statement "a government of the people by the people and for the people".
@Mark: Though it is sad and dark, thanks a million for this quote. It is undeniably relevant as to the times we are going through.
I am in a quandary: I don't support enlarging NATO, thereby escalating Putin's paranoia (explicable somewhat by Russia's long history of calamitous invasions) yet I'm not sure sanctions are effective, as they mostly target the rank and file of the population, and have little effect on the chief mischief-makers.
I feel for the people of Ukraine, but I don't want this conflict to metamorphose into a third world war, this one involving chemical, biological and nuclear weapons---a war to end all wars. And all of us.
The West should send all the aid it can to Ukraine, and bog Russia down in a long and costly guerilla war such as it suffered in Afghanistan. Like the Afghans then, Ukrainians will never give up, and Putin and his apparatchiks will suffer a very big black eye.
If fascism is allowed to run rampant once again? I for one intend on opting out. They've destroyed the planet already. Let them have it. Me? I'm taking dirt nap.
We have already forgotten about the Taliban who arrived in Kabul last August.
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