Don’t walk it back Joe, stick to what you said: ‘Putin cannot remain in power’…

While Joe Biden has a reputation for making gaffes and while some may think he did it again or just was too candid for good diplomacy, I applaud him for saying “Putin cannot remain in power”. And I am disappointed that his staff sought to walk back his words.

Anyone who believes in democracy and a civilized, humane rule-based system for all people must feel that Putin must go.

(Biden also has called Russian dictator Vladimir Putin a “butcher” for atrocities he has ordered on civilians in Ukraine (and Russia) and referred to him as a “war criminal”.)

If this was the 1940s would it be wrong to say “Hitler must go”?

The only difference here is that we should not and most assuredly will not invade Russia and force Putin into going down into a bunker and ending it all (for himself, that is), saving us the trouble.

But if we can impart the message to the Russian people, everyone from lowly peasant or worker to middle class and elites, perhaps they can do the job for us.

While we do not have the right to tell the Russian people what to do, we can strongly suggest. I mean their internal affairs are no business of ours, that is until they become external, invading another nation, going after civilians and laying waste to cities and towns, not to mention kidnapping civilians and forcing them to go to Russia as slaves. Then it is our business.

We are all fortunate that President Biden has more patience than I and that I am not in charge. If it were up to me, I’d have already ordered the troops and tanks and airpower into Ukraine to rescue the beleaguered and impressively brave people there. But again, fortunately I have no say.

And maybe I am all talk, but the Ukranian people have already proven they are not. I am in awe of them and their soldiers, professional and volunteers. They are holding their own and then some.

And I go back to the Cold War. The history there is that when we stand up to Russia, it generally backs down.

I for one am tired of living in fear of the Russian bully. Putin has threatened to use his nuclear arsenal on anyone who interferes with his grab for Ukraine — presumably he means by directly going into that nation or his own — for all kinds of people are helping the Ukrainians now.

Personally, I think Putin is bluffing, unless he has just gone mad. But I also realize that backed into a corner, he might try anything.

Besides keeping the ammo and other supplies flowing into Ukraine, it seems that the best approach now is to economically strangle Russia. At some point a regime change is likely to occur.

And here is an uncomfortable thought: all my life I have been led to believe that that while an all-out nuclear exchange between the U.S. and Russia (or any foe) would be catastrophic at best and doomsday for the whole world at most, I had also been living with the notion that we had some credible form or protection, a system that could destroy incoming ICBMs before they arrived. Not so, I read now from different sources. We are even vulnerable to missiles from North Korea.

Where’s Reagan’s Star Wars protective shield when we need it?

I sometimes almost wonder what good it is for us to have nuclear weapons since we do not dare to use them (that is since 1945 when the U.S. debuted the bomb(s) on Japan). But the proof of their value I suppose is that the concept of Mutually Assured Destruction, MAD, kept the Soviets at bay for decades. But now a Russian tyrant has turned that notion on its head and is using the threat of nuclear weapons as a hostage.

For now, the economic weapon seems the best hope.

The South fought valiantly in the American Civil War but the North fought just as well but had its ace, an economic blockade of the South.

As for Vladimir Putin: hang him high…

The resolve and the bravery of the Ukranian people we see in the news reports is super impressive. It makes me wonder how we ourselves would fare here in America in the same position — well hopefully we would do just the same. But we are so divided as a nation. But nothing like an invasion from an outside force to bring folks together maybe.

And on should the U.S. do more to help Ukraine, such as a no-fly zone or direct involvement with troops — of course our president has ruled all that out, repeating his position on that sooo many times. I agree for now but the fact that we are not doing it should suffice — what if it should become necessary? There goes our credibility. Vladimir Putin showed he has no credibility with his claim he would not invade, as if he amassed thousands of troops on the border for the fun of it (and of course then invaded — which he had already done years before with unmarked troops).

And, yes, Putin is a war criminal, with the targeting of civilians, including a maternity hospital and folks the Russians lured out into the open promising a safe corridor to escape.

Part of me wants to see Putin hanged like we did to the German Nazis or Gen. Tojo of Japan, or see him strung up upside down like the Italians did to the fascist Mussolini — or see this Russian beast arrested after he crawls out of a hole like Saddam Hussein of Iraq or Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. But the concept of “war crime” is, I confess, a little hazy or confusing to me. I mean when and in what way is war just? Certainly in self defense, but there is almost always an argument over who started it all.

And to some extent, the United States has bloody hands from past events — war is hell.

It is also impressive and gratifying to see so many nations of the world taking the side of Ukraine and to see it getting weapons shipments from other European nations (and the U.S. of course).

For now, and perhaps forever, it is probably best that the NATO nations not put their military boots on the ground in Ukraine, especially the U.S. I write “especially the U.S.” because it’s too easy to get tangled in domestic squabbles of the people we are trying to help or so-called “friendly fire” accidents. Let Ukrainians fight for Ukraine, as they are so impressively doing.

As for Putin trying to blackmail us and the rest of the world with his threat to use nuclear arms, that’s wearing thin. I mean we can’t just ignore that, but we’ve lived with that threat for some seven decades — and guess what Mr. Putin — we have them too.

I believe most of the world has either severely cut back or stopped doing trade with Russia. President Biden had a long phone call with the leader of Communist China this week warning him not to aid Russia in its attempted takeover of Ukraine. Personally, I’d be for halting all trade with China. I know we get one heck of lot of stuff from them, but it’s a habit we need to quit. I’d be for fully recognizing Taiwan (free China) and outwardly promising to defend it with our Navy.

On the other hand, perhaps we need to keep our options open by playing China against Russia (as we tried to do or did in the Cold War). International relations is tricky — sometimes we need help from people who are not going to be like us in thought.

How the Russian Army has bogged down in Ukraine has been an eye opener. Russia still has manpower and materiel backup on its side but if it is economically starved it will not endure.

Hopefully, the Russian people will revolt against Putin and his ilk.

And we can all be friends once more.

As for China, they’re a hard case. But we created that monster with our trade. And it seemed like such a good idea at the time.

The fear of nuclear Armageddon resurfaces, for now making the West militarily impotent…

I don’t think about a pending nuclear Armageddon every second, but it is there in the front of my mind even so, just like when I was an adolescent in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The possibility of a nuclear weapons exchange that would likely or most assuredly wipe out civilization or life on earth has been a real possibility nearly all my life, but we all have just lived with it. It is something over which we have no direct control.

It makes me a bit nervous now with the Ukraine crisis. The only solace I have is I’ve completed a large part of my life.

After our fears of imminent nuclear war and sure annihilation were put on the back burner or almost forgotten for a few decades they have resurfaced, staring us in the face with a belligerent Russian leader using his nuclear assets as a shield as his conventional military forces wantonly wreak death and destruction on what has been a fledgling independent democracy, Ukraine. Russian forces are going full force against civilians, pregnant women and children included.

And now Putin’s forces have struck a target or targets just about a dozen miles from the Polish border, bringing a confrontation with North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces ever closer. And that includes the U.S.

U.S. President Biden has stated so many times now that no U.S. forces will be sent into Ukraine itself, now that the war between Ukraine and Russia, has begun, and has ruled out taking part in a so-called “no-fly zone” to combat Russian air power, directly or even indirectly, so far. Ukraine is not a member of NATO (and, so far, has been prevented from being one). NATO is only obligated to act militarily if an attack is made on any of its 30-member states.

While I personally am in favor of not committing U.S. forces at this time if we can help it, I don’t see the utility of the constant reassurances we are giving to Putin. The disgraceful Afghanistan bug out, that mirrored our desperate escape from Vietnam, has sent a message to the likes of Putin. The wrong one.

In this present case, I am for prudence, not getting into something we cannot finish or control but not telegraphing or intentions or capabilities to adversaries. Biden is right to be prudent, wrong to say too much.

(And, what will happen if Russian forces hit NATO forces, on purpose or by accident of war?)

Vladimir Putin says if anyone dares to directly (or even indirectly) get in his way he is ready to let the nukes fly, apparently abandoning the notion of MAD, or mutual assured destruction, which has prevented a U.S. vs. Russia nuclear conflict for some seven decades. Or, he’s gone loony enough to commit suicide to make a point.

But back in 1962 my adult life was all ahead of me. My family lived not far from an Air Force base where a squadron of the Strategic Air Command was stationed, armed with nuclear weapons ready to answer an attack by the similarly armed Russian Soviet forces. There were also nuclear missile silos not far away.

Even then all that did not directly impact my life or attitude to any real extent. But the fear or dread was always ready to pop into my thoughts, and did, especially at night when I thought anytime I’d see an orange-red flame of a nuclear fireball, shaped like a giant mushroom, to be followed by a giant blast of wind and deadly radiation. Even those far away from such a sight would eventually succumb to the deadly radiation that would permeate the world’s atmosphere in relative short order, we were told.

In more recent years, the now late scientist and San Francisco Bay Area talk radio personality Dr. Bill Wattenburg often warned of the chaos that would ensue with a nuclear attack. People would be suddenly faced with little to no food or water or energy sources and would be in a panic to escape blast areas, with roads clogged, and, well, I imagine complete anarchy.

Today, we have even more players in the nuclear club, including North Korea where a mad man starves his own people, murders anyone seen to be in his way, and whose military keeps lobbing test missiles our way, getting ever closer to being within range of our shores.

Paradoxically, wars are still fought the conventional way. So far, with one major exception, no one has dared use the ultimate weapon, because to do so is to unleash a demon that cannot be controlled.

The exception I referred to is the U.S. Early on, after developing the initial type of nuclear weapon, the atomic bomb, we ended our war with Japan in 1945 by dropping two of them on two major cities in that nation — the second one convinced the Japanese authorities to surrender. And those bombs were puny compared to the one’s we have today. They did create huge devastation and loss of life and years of residual ill health effects to the population. Nuclear weapons have been used to threaten but have never been unleashed since. Just as dangerous as a purposeful use is an accidental firing and the reply it might well bring. There have been close calls we know about and perhaps ones we don’t.

I want to think that behind the scenes things are being worked out, plans being made to stop this, and our leaders just can’t tell us for now.

But I recall when George W. Bush got us involved in the deadly Iraq quagmire under the false notion that the dictator there had weapons of mass destruction (that never turned up) people assured us that “he knew things we did not” — turns out he did not know anything. Our leaders did have things going on behind the scenes back then, that is Vice President Dick Cheney did, but not good things.

As our fellow human beings are being terrorized and slaughtered in Ukraine people of the world want to react, to do something. But what we often refer to as “the West” so far militarily is being made impotent by the threat by Putin of using nuclear weapons.

Few think that if successful Putin will stop at Ukraine. He’s already struck close to the border of NATO.

Could we threaten back? A gamble for sure.

But continued assurances by Biden that we will stand by, to me sound like an invitation for him to carry on and double down.

But maybe Biden knows something….maybe not.

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Meanwhile, people in Ukraine are valiantly fighting back with much world support, while also millions have been forced to flee, creating a major refugee crisis.

All civilized people need to act together to stop Putin’s madness in Ukraine…

As the Russian invasion of Ukraine gets more grotesque by the day, it seems it’s time for anyone and everyone, person or entity, to act.

For example:

The United Nations, NATO, the Pope, or perhaps more appropriately, the Russian Orthodox Church. Or all of the afore-mentioned and more.

This is not a common competition for resources or influence or a spat over some grudge or a conventional war or just war, to the extent there is such a thing. It is simply an act of evil by a dictator, who perhaps feeling the world has passed him by, and feeling impotent, has lashed out. Furthermore, Vladimir Putin may be fully deranged.

But he can’t be doing all this alone. He at least must have an inner circle supporting him. And to a degree, those down the line who look the other way are complicit as well.

The invasion was completely unprovoked. Ukraine was, is, an independent nation.

To let this stand is to surrender the principle of self government.

Ukranian citizens are offered a way out of the fighting by the Russians only to be mowed down. The Russians bomb hospitals and kindergartens and all types of civilian targets. They don’t even allow a proper collection of the dead. Bodies suffer the indignity of being dumped into mass graves or left lying in the streets. People, women and children and the old, are trapped with no food or water.

The Russians attack and bomb nuclear power reactors and interfere with technicians who are the only ones who know how to safely operate them. This disrupts power and threatens radioactive leaks that could endanger all of Europe or the world.

The nations of the world, even China, need to act. They need to demand that the killing stop, that there be an immediate cease fire.

NATO has the authority to act more directly because Europe now is being threatened directly, with the flow of millions of refugees, the endangerment to nuclear power reactors, and the clear sign that Russia has no regard for national sovereignty or international law.

The United Nations, as feckless as it often seems, should not let Russia stand in its way or expell it if it tries. Russia on the Security Council? That’s obscene.

Russia under Putin has lost its credibility, although it could remedy that with a regime change.

The security of the world is in the balance, as Putin attempts to blackmail the planet by threatening nuclear retaliation.

Action needs to be taken in concert with all civilized entities.

No, I don’t think that the United States should go blundering into this alone, and yet it needs to exert its influence and prestige as leader of the free world.

Let Putin keep digging his own grave deeper before we feel forced to intervene…

I am appalled as any civilized human being could be at the barbarity of the Russian assault on Ukraine, with the latest report as of this writing being that Russian forces bombed a maternity hospital. And I read what may be unverified reports (I don’t know) of children under the rubble.

So, I hate to bring this up, but it occurs to me things like this happen in the Middle East and Africa and Asia and the reaction of the western world is revulsion and perhaps a relief that we don’t live in such an inhumane atmosphere (our domestic gun violence notwithstanding), but not with as high a level of consternation.

Maybe it is because the people of Ukraine for the most part are European or European like, in looks, customs, and economics. We in the West are not all European but we live in a culture and economic system that is.

And an assault on that way of life and economic system is a direct threat to our whole modern industrial world civilization.

Other parts of the world and other cultures tend to be more tribal in nature and less sophisticated in the idea of modern democratic government or any system of government that goes beyond the family or tribe.

So, what to do? about the Ukraine crisis that is.

I think President Biden is handling it correctly by choking off the Russian oil supply (that is Russin oil exports) and other trade, for the most part in cooperation from other western nations (Germany has a problem cutting off its natural gas supplies from Russia). But this move reminds me of the father getting ready to paddle his misbehaving son and saying: “this is going to hurt me as much as you”. Russia may suffer economic losses and thus lose revenue to finance its war on Ukraine from losing oil customers, but meanwhile the cost of gasoline and diesel needed to fuel our automobiles and trucks and industry in the West has skyrocketed. How long consumers will be willing (or able) to suffer at the pump to do their patriotic chore is in question. Are we cutting off our nose to spite our face? Life is rough. There are few easy decisions.

I am relieved that we didn’t blunder into another no-win war or another war, period, so far that is.

The awful violence and human misery Ukraine is facing notwithstanding, better to let Vladimir Putin of Russia continue to make an awful fool of himself and keep digging the hole he is in deeper. At last word, his vaunted army is not doing so well and is suffering a high casualty rate while the outnumbered and outgunned Ukranian army and citizen volunteers are putting up stiff and brave resistance (with the help of western armament).

But make no mistake about it, NATO, likely with the U.S. in the lead, would have no doubt moved in already, even though Ukraine is not a NATO member, in the name of stability, human decency, and a civilized world order. But we are all paralyzed by the threat made by Putin that anyone directly threatening his move on Ukraine faces a nuclear strike.

For some seven decades there was a standoff between what was the Soviet Union and later Russia, and the United States, the world’s two nuclear-armed superpowers, with each prevented from using them by the notion of mutually assured destruction — really the fact that the whole world would essentially be annihilated in the process (save the cockroaches perhaps). It continues to be a miracle there were no accidental missile launches, although there were some close calls.

We were also saved by the fact that neither Soviet nor U.S. leaders were off their rockers, Trump, and Nixon in his dark days, exceptions, maybe. Yeah, we even survived Trump (he is likely for his own self preservation, and besides, he fell in love with Putin, and that nut job that rules North Korea and saber rattles his own nukes).

I’m still hoping for domestic-backed regime change in Russia, that is with the backing of Russian citizens and the force of the Kremlin insiders, oligarchs, and/or the military, whereby Putin is deposed.

Even so, how much does Ukraine and the civilized world have to endure before NATO and the United Nations makes a move?

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Besides the U.S. and Russia, at least seven other nations have some nuclear weapons capabilities. During World War II, U.S. scientists let the nuclear genie out of the bottle. Nazi Germany was developing the bomb, but its efforts were unseccessful, thankfully. The U.S is so far the only nation to use nuclear bombs. Let’s hope that was the last of that. But is Putin desperate enough to use his nuclear arsenal? Are we to spend our lives as nuclear hostages of Putin or other foes? Seems so.

Hoping for a plot to remove Putin…

I can only hope my government, the U.S. government, is working behind the scenes to rescue us all from the terrible and quite irrational tyrant Vladimir Putin of Russia.

It would be understandable if we were not being kept up on such moves.

I would think or hope that our top military leadership has some contacts with their counterparts in Russia and that our Central Intelligence Agency has contacts with their Russian counterparts.

All parties have an interest in removing Mr. Putin from power. His actions and nuclear threats of this past week make him way too dangerous for all.

A peaceful removal from power would suffice. But whatever works.

We have come full circle from the Cold War days of decades ago. We thought diplomacy and the model our democratic (as in democracy) values would bring peace.

No. Nixon opened us up to China. It surprised us. China stuck with authoritarian rule and communism but embraced capitalism at the same time. Russia stuck with authoritarianism too, but dropped communism.

But now both nations are plotting to take over or divide the world up between them.

If we survive the present crisis, I would hope we never are so naive again.

Like George W tried to say but due to a brain freeze could not say:

Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.

Life’s cheap in the East; the Russian Bear is hungry…

Is it an East-West thing?

It seems as if life is cheap in the Eastern World.

The Islamic terrorists chop heads off or burn enemies alive in cages.

The mad man who runs North Korea reportedly sicced dogs on his uncle and had a military officer who was caught sleeping during the grand dictator’s speech executed by an anti-aircraft gun.

Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is reigning terror upon whom he claims to be his own people in Ukraine with bombs and bullets.

That reminds me of the famous quote of an American army officer in South Vietnam: “We had to destroy the village to save it”.

So, yes, the West, the U.S., is not innocent of inhumanity.

There was the Mai Lai Massacre (and others). But, still the violent genocidal-prone culture seems stronger in the Eastern half of the world. Maybe not.

And I’m talking modern times. You go back, everyone did it.

President John F. Kennedy was shocked in his only face-to-face meeting with Russian (Soviet) leader Nikita Krushchev.

“I never met a man like this,” Kennedy remarked to another reporter, Hugh Sidey of Time magazine. “[I] talked about how a nuclear exchange would kill 70 million people in 10 minutes, and he just looked at me as if to say, ‘So what?’” (BY BECKY LITTLE, History.com)

Maybe that’s how today’s Russian leader Putin sees it.

Meanwhile, we in the so-called civilized world try to cling to our humanity-based rules. That makes us vulnerable, but I still think that’s a good thing. Would not want it any other way.

But Putin has declared via words and actions that he can run rough shod over anyone and if anyone interferes they will face possible nuclear retaliation.

Meanwhile, the  United Nations can make statements but is all but powerless. The 30 members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, including the U.S., can make a military show but only within their borders. Ukraine is off limits, it not being a NATO member. It has not qualified for membership, partly due to a history of corruption and due to steadfast objections by Russia. So NATO, a military force, appears powerless to stop directly the ruthless Russian takeover of Ukraine, which although once a part of Russia has been an independent nation for more than two decades. It’s trying to build a Western democracy but has faced an ongoing insurgency in its eastern parts. Now its being assaulted in all areas by Russian troops and armor and air power.

(Russia seized the Crimean Peninsula from Ukraine in 2014 and has been aiding insurgemt Russian separatists in the  Eastern Donbass region of Ukraine ever since.)

With an ongoing punitive cutoff of economic ties with Russia, the West is fighting back. And the West is supplying armaments and other assistance to Ukraine as it can.

But Putin seems willing to play the nuclear card. It could be a bluff.

Every time our side says we won’t put boots on the ground in Ukraine and we certainty would not engage in a nuclear first strike I cringe. There goes our bargaining power. No, we don’t want to do those things, but why do we always tip our hand?

Being on the side of peace is not easy.

We used to follow the doctrine of peace through strength.

Still, the economic sanctions seem promising.

But at the same time we need a plan B.

Once the Russian Bear swallows Ukraine it may well nibble at its NATO neighbors.

It might also begin sniffing out the Western hemisphere, more than it already has.

Then what?

Defeating Putin should be Biden’s top priority…

Even though I wished President Biden would quit reassuring Vladimir Putin (and us) that he won’t send American troops into Ukraine to fight back the Russian Bear, I think the economic sanctions route is the best course of action at this time. But the sanctions need to be maximum.

And time has nearly run out.

While the Russians are meeting stiff resistance from the brave and committed Ukranian soldiers and volunteer civilians, and while the Russians may be taking heavy casualties and reportedly are having equipment and supply problems, time and military inventory is on their side.

As I am writing this, I understand the Russians have taken one major city now and are closing in on the capital of Kiev.

They are wantonly going after civilian targets, looting while they go. They are using terrible weapons designed for mass casualties and reducing cities to rubble.

The Russian invasion is meeting with world-wide condemnations, save for a handful of dictatorial regimes.

There is some notable dissent among the Russian public, even though dissenters there face trouble in the police state.

Some of the rich oligarchs and others in Putin’s inner circle are reportedly not happy because economic sanctions threaten their wealth and lavish lifestyles.

That’s why Biden and other countries and entities world wide engaging in sanctions against Russia need to tighten the squeeze.

An unhappy Russian public along with nervous rich Russians could conceivably result in Putin being deposed from within.

The U.S., and Europe and the rest of the world, as I write this, is still buying oil and gas from Russia. That should be stopped. We are all financing Putin’s war.

The price of oil has already shot up from $60 per barrel recently to well over $100 now, partly on the fear of a shut-off of the Russian supply. A world embargo on that oil would cause U.S. fuel prices at the pump to climb way higher no doubt. But a sacrifice might be worth the pain, as compared to letting Russia take over the world. Would cut down on the green house gasses too.

As for what Biden laid out in his State of the Union speech, I’d say defeat Putin, repair our roads and bridges, then tackle the rest.

Putin, not Russia so much, is the world’s existential threat. With his threat to use his nuclear arsenal against anyone who gets in his way, he must be stopped

It could be that behind the scenes our military has a back channel with the Russian counterparts and can reason with them. Or maybe the CIA is working with people in Russia to take care of Putin.

If Ukraine falls and is reduced to rubble as it seems it might, how do we stop Putin from further advances?

Sending in troops could result in the law of unintended consequences and of course major casualties.

Way back in the 1950s and ’60s during the depths of the Cold War when Russia was the Soviet Union and referred to (along with China and other communist foes) as the “Reds”, there was a popular saying referring to the nuclear threat: “better dead than Red”. But there was a counter one: “better Red than dead”.

The U.S. and other free societies may be facing that conundrum.

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Looking over my 72- plus years, I understand that sending in the troops is not the magic fix and, in fact, can be the opposite. The Ukrainians seem willing to stand up for themselves. That’s way more that can be said for many others we tried to help over the years (we might have had ulterior motives for offering help at times).