Escalating Tensions in Eastern Europe and the World

I had plans for a fun post today, but I'm just not feeling it.

Tensions have escalated yet again in Europe. Joe Biden may be too senile to run for re-election, but apparently he's still able to sign off on Ukraine launching US-made missiles into Russia. On top of selling Americans into perpetual war debt to fund corporate cronies here and corrupt politicians there to the tune of billions of dollars, now "we're" directly complicit in belligerent action.

Needless to say, Putin isn't happy about this, and has announced a new nuclear policy. According to Reuters, "Russia had been warning the West for months that if Washington allowed Ukraine to fire U.S., British and French missiles deep into Russia, Moscow would consider those NATO members to be directly involved in the war in Ukraine." Further, "Russia could consider a nuclear strike in response to a conventional attack on Russia or its ally Belarus..."He's also another old man with an ego stuck in a tight spot. How itchy is his trigger finger?

I'm no fan of Putin, and the invasion of Ukraine was unjustifiable. However, pretending history began just over 1,000 days ago is also a poor analysis. The former Soviet Bloc has been plagued with tension and unrest ever since the Soviet Union collapsed, and probably had internal conflicts long before then. Like the Middle East after World War I, political lines were imposed on people with disparate, diverse, and often hostile cultures.

The seeds of war were sown when "democracy" subjected people to rivals, enemies or simply strangers who didn't see eye-to-eye. We saw this in the Yugoslav Wars, with NATO taking sides and turning a blind eye to war crimes committed by their allies. Now, not only has Ukraine had its own Maidan revolution and initial war with Russia in 2014, but Hunter Biden held a position on the board of a Ukrainian petrochemical corporation deeply intertwined with political and corporate interests there starting then. He had no obvious reason to be involved beyond links to his father, who was vice president at the time, creating at the very least a suspicion of conflict of interest.

In short, the whole mess reeks of corruption, and the Ukrainian people were human shields for the political class there. They have been dying for almost 3 years after war erupted yet again. Now, not only have Russian conscripts been fed into the meat grinder, but nuclear threats are emerging seriously for the first time in decades on a level we arguably haven't seen since the Cuban Missile Crisis, and North Korea is sending aid to Russia.

I have no confidence in either Biden or Trump to avoid Armageddon, so I hope you can understand why I just don't feel up to writing a tutorial for GIMP or opening a pack of cards or writing about any of the other stuff I've been trying to focus on. These cocksuckers might get us all killed, and for what?

Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? It will be worthy of a free, enlightened, and, at no distant period, a great Nation, to give to mankind the magnanimous and too novel example of a people always guided by an exalted justice and benevolence. [...] In the execution of such a plan, nothing is more essential, than that permanent, inveterate antipathies against particular Nations, and passionate attachments for others, should be excluded; and that, in place of them, just and amicable feelings towards all should be cultivated. The Nation, which indulges towards another an habitual hatred, or an habitual fondness, is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead it astray from its duty and its interest. [...] So likewise, a passionate attachment of one Nation for another produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite Nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest, in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter, without adequate inducement or justification. It leads also to concessions to the favorite Nation of privileges denied to others, which is apt doubly to injure the Nation making the concessions; by unnecessarily parting with what ought to have been retained; and by exciting jealousy, ill-will, and a disposition to retaliate, in the parties from whom equal privileges are withheld. And it gives to ambitious, corrupted, or deluded citizens, (who devote themselves to the favorite nation,) facility to betray or sacrifice the interests of their own country, without odium, sometimes even with popularity; gilding, with the appearances of a virtuous sense of obligation, a commendable deference for public opinion, or a laudable zeal for public good, the base or foolish compliances of ambition, corruption, or infatuation. — excerpted from George Washington's Farewell Address

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