I am thinking of Mariupol which has been systematically destroyed by Russian forces. Seemingly, just like the Americans in Vietnam, the people had to be terrified and killed in order to save them!
It’s insane!!
It doesn’t look as if NATO is going to come to their help. There isn’t any help coming. Hundreds of thousands of civilians cringe in cellars, the city above them reduced to rubble, listening to the ongoing bombardment.
The Russians have only one way of waging war – they pound and bomb cities into rubble! They kill and terrorise innocent citizens. It’s disgusting, brutal and inhuman. What are they hoping to gain? They make people hate them. They will never be able to keep and rule the land. They are making a wasteland out of a civilised country!!
Time for all wagers of war to be dragged before international courts – including the UK and USA!!
We need an international justice system that banishes war. We need a UN with teeth!!
It was bright and sunny and quite a lot warmer in Yorkshire today. I didn’t go for a walk as I had a writing group. So good to meet up with friends and share our writing. Some great stuff.
Back home I’ve been playing some Byrds and finished reading my Jasper Fforde book. Really enjoyed it. Am wondering what to read next!! Might try a couple of friends’ books. I’ve got two ready.
Meanwhile, out in Coronaland, our clown is cosying up to another unpleasant dictator who likes beheading people because they are gay. Seems that we need the oil and gas because cosying up to the previous dictator is no longer considered kosher.
Fortunately, our clown was not involved in the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe or she’d still be in there! If there is publicity to be made out of it they can afford to come up with £400,000,000. But when it’s giving money to those in need whose kids are starving or fair pay for teachers and nurses that’s another story. That money is needed for tax cuts for the wealthy.
I don’t know what is going to happen with the huge cost of living crisis that is overwhelming us. It’s a tsunami of increases. Rents have shot up. House prices have shot up. Petrol is now over £1.60 a litre. Gas and Electricity has tripled in price. Food is shooting up in price. All goods are becoming more expensive. On top of that the Tories are raising taxes and raising National Insurance. How on earth can people manage? For millions it is not going to be a choice of heating or eating. They are going to have the gas off and still starve.
The growth industry is food banks!
The question is why?
Brexit is costing us £37 billion a year and have put food and goods prices up due to a lack of HGV drivers. Then we have the loss of cheap Eastern European workers in shops, care homes, drivers, builders and pickers. The impact has been higher prices and shortages.
The government has hidden the cost of Brexit under the Covid crisis. Their mismanagement of the Covid crisis meant that they have squandered untold tens of billions on useless PPE, useless T&T, and bungs to their chums. How many billions of silly loans to crooks are they writing off?
They are looking to hide the Covid ineptitude behind a cost of living crisis that they are blaming on global problems. Our energy is going up 50% in April yet in France it’s going up 4%.
The oil companies are making tens of billions of extra profit (while pump prices are exorbitantly high) but the government refuses to take a windfall tax to help out the needy.
They are now looking to hide up the cost of living crisis (of their own making) behind the Ukraine war.
It’s all lies, smoke and mirrors. They are lying to us and looking to shove all their ineptitude, corruption and sleaze under the carpet.
It is very clear what their aims are. They are robbing from the poor – those on benefits and in the public services – in order to give to the poor. The top 5% have never had it so good. They’ve been making a fortune out of Brexit and Covid (and the cost of living crisis and the war). They are a bunch of profiteers busy stuffing their ill-gotten gains in the Cayman Islands.
I’ve got a good solution!! Raise the tax on the stupidly-rich, block off the tax loopholes and put a windfall tax on all of those industries who have made silly money out of Brexit, Covid, Energy and War. Of course, they won’t do that. People like Rishi Sunak are the stupidly rich. They want those tax loopholes for themselves. Those Tory MPs working on their second jobs, earning millions (like Rees-Mogg and Geoffrey Cox). The top 5% are the very people they were put into parliament to represent. They’d rather push the poor into starvation.
So, in Ukraine the Russian military is still totally bogged down, suffering horrendous casualties and losses of planes and tanks. They have been so poor at logistics that their tanks are being abandoned because they’re running out of fuel. They still haven’t managed to take a single city, had another general killed today and are losing this war. They have suffered 13,500 casualties and Putin is having to bring in mercenaries from Chechnia and Syria to bolster his depleted forces. This is meant to be a superpower!! What a joke. We’ll probably find their nukes are made of plastic!!
Perhaps they will have to negotiate for peace??
As the sanctions bite Russia is in a mess. Could be the end for Putin!!
All this mess is our fault though. The West went back on promises and moved NATO into those eastern countries putting missiles and planes close to Russia. Then when Russia invaded Georgia we did nothing. When they invaded Crimea we did nothing. When they invaded the two Ukrainian states we did nothing. The message to Putin was that the West would simply sit back and allow him to take Ukraine.
Putin underestimated the Western response. He no longer had Trump in the USA (who might have joined his mate in invading Ukraine). He’d bought Brexit and got Johnson in power. He thought the EU was weakened and we are led by a clown; he could do what he wanted.
He thought sanctions would be mild and last a few weeks. He must be reeling now and wondering what hit him. It’s almost as if the West has lured him in for a sucker punch.
Mind you, Ukraine is not the nice country it’s made out to be. It’s full of far-right groups and racism. There are some very unpleasant elements!
Over here in Coronaland with a pandemic that no longer exists Johnson must be getting worried. The virus is surging. We’ve shot up to 93,576 cases with 153 deaths. Hospital admissions shot up by a third this week.
Of course, our useless clown is doing his best. He’s keeping out the way and not saying anything. He’s removing testing so we can only guess at the real numbers, he’s disbanded the science group and he’s planning to stop reporting on the virus.
He’s hoping it will magically go away!!
Operation ‘Save The Big Dog’ is in full swing. All the country’s woes are due to other global issues (or Corbyn), every lie, lawbreaking incident or act of ineptitude is covered up. The media and BBC are under control. The rich are getting richer and the poor are too stupid to see what’s going on. All’s well!!
Stay safe!!!
Decisions
Joe Biden stood at the window, frowning, hands clasped behind his back, eyes watching the anti-war demonstration in front of the Whitehouse, but brain not engaged. Deep in thought.
The Ukraine situation was delicately poised. One false move now could easily provoke World War Three. These decisions were all knife-edged. Should he have announced that they would not involve themselves militarily? Should he have refused to pass on those Polish planes or enforce a no-fly zone?
Putin had threatened a nuclear holocaust. Instead of a rapier thrust and installing of a puppet regime he had a war of attrition. The costs were enormous, not just in tanks, planes, roubles and soldiers, but in credibility. They were being humiliated. Russia was bankrupt – a pariah state.
Yet there was still that enormous nuclear arsenal and a cornered beast was at his most dangerous.
The switchboard woke him from his reverie. ‘I have Kamala here for you.’
‘Send her in.’
Kamala strode in looking tense and business-like. Without asking, she purposefully sat herself at the table.
Joe, seeing this was formal joined her, leaning forward, fingers interlaced. His blue eyes locked with her brown eyes and the unspoken question was written on his face. What was this about?
Kamala nervously ran her tongue over her lips, took a deep breath and steadied herself. ‘I’ve just come from a meeting with Lloyd Austin and Avril Haynes.’ She tensed, waiting for him to catch on. ‘Avril says they have finally achieved it.’ Her eyes were steady and piercing.
Joe slowly sat back into his seat and his hands slid into his lap. He knew what this was about.
‘This is it,’ Kamala said quietly.
‘Is she certain?’ He asked. ‘Every sub, every plane, every mobile launcher?’
She nodded, her eyes not leaving his.
‘Our operatives have successfully secreted a location device on every nuke the Russians have.’
Joe took a long deep breath. He could feel his heart racing. This was a moment that he had hoped would never come. His mind was clear.
‘Is she sure they will work?’
‘We’ve tested them repeatedly. When the satellites activate them they will work. We haven’t had a single failure.’
He required that reassurance. ‘What does Lloyd say?’
Kamala paused, pursed her lips and set her face in a stern mask. ‘Lloyd says we are ready to go. We have sufficient cruise missiles deployed to take them all out. We have a window of opportunity.’
Joe raised his hands to his chest, considered for a full minute.
He rose, walked the short distance to his desk and punched the intercom. ‘Call a full cabinet meeting. The war room. Now.’
They were all gathered. The room was full of conversation. All, apart from Lloyd Austin, Defence secretary, and Avril Haynes, Intelligence, were speculating on what this was about.
Kamala took her seat. Joe walked in with slow deliberate steps and placed his hands on the long table.
There was an expectant silence.
‘Will you be quiet please?’
Opher – 16.3.2022
His decision has killed thousands and made Russia a pariah state. He has bankrupted his own country and reduced Ukrainian cities into rubble.
He systematically lies to his people but one day they will wake up and rise up.
His elite clique will only stand for so much. At some point they will move in and kick him out.
At some point he, and the other architects of this barbarity, will be dragged before an international court and tried for war crimes.
Russia will be forced to pay reparations to the Ukraine.
It will happen!
The Russians have already shown themselves ineffective and useless. Even if they take Ukraine they will never hold it. Their losses have been enormous. They have had to call in mercenaries from Chechen and Syria. Militarily they pose no threat against NATO. The only card they hold is the threat of nuclear.
Sane people will weigh things up.
Hopefully this is the end of Putin. A regime change might just bring in Russia from the cold.
Bodies in the street
The last touch
Before they left the universe;
The last touch
Before they are gone forever,
Was the frozen hard ground.
Bodies abandoned
In the street
With no-one to care,
No-one to provide that final embrace.
Left to freeze
In the icy street
With no warmth
In those last seconds;
No human touch
No final goodbye.
Opher – 13.3.2022
I wrote this in response to the scenes of Russian soldiers left strewn across a city street, abandoned and uncared for.
Their body heat seeps into the ground until they become frozen lifeless lumps of meat.
They, and the thousands of Ukrainian citizens and soldiers killed by the Russians, were disposed of in mass graves dug by machines.
Death has lost all humanity.
