Good morning everyone, good to see you. Hope today is the treasure and blessing that all days ought to be for all people. I wish you the very best.
I’d like to build today’s opinion piece around this carefully considered, deliberately crafted statement that I feel eases me into today’s topic.
Vladimir Putin, aka Russia’s Potato Head dictator, is a world class, five-star, blue-chip, blue-ribbon, card-carrying asshole. He’s also a BFB, delicately extended to mean “Big F**king Baby.” I searched the internet to come up with a Russian phrase that would capture the same sentiment and could only come up with Vladimir Putin, so there you go. It’s built right into their language.
So if I die of polonium poisoning, or if I’m found thrown to death out of a window of my home, or if I blow up in a plane explosion, you can bet it was the Russians. For the record, I live in a bungalow and rarely fly, so some small degree of comfort there.
President Joe Biden has finally given Ukraine permission to allow long-range American missiles to be used against targets inside Russia itself. Before they could only be used to blow up things on Ukrainian soil. But now the gloves are off, and Vlady’s pissed, again.
So pissed that he’s updated his nation’s policy, or doctrine, governing the first-use of nuclear weapons. He made a big show of it, too, actually “signing” a document allowing Russia to use nukes first if they were to be attacked with weapons provided by a nuclear power, in this case the United States. With their potato, cabbage and vodka-fueled logic, the Russians are saying that any such attack with any such weapons would be viewed as a joint attack by both Ukraine and the nation supplying the weapons, which I suppose would also have to include weapons being provided by France and the United Kingdom as well. And by actually signing it, I suppose we’re to take that to mean that the Russians actually mean business this time.
I shake in my shoes.
It’s the latest in a series of ten thousand red lines the Russians have declared, only to have absolutely nothing to say once those red lines are crossed. It seems, for Russia, crickets are the national bird.
These American weapons will likely still have conditions placed upon their use. The Ukrainians would not likely be allowed to use them against Russian nuclear-weapon facilities or significant civilian infrastructure. But they would be allowed to be focussed on military logistic hubs, troop concentrations, ammo depots, that sort of thing. The kind of targets that would severely disrupt Russian attempts to continue its invasion and occupation of large portions of Ukraine, or to take back the parts of Russia — Kursk Oblast — that the Ukrainians have boldly taken themselves. The weapon, the US Army’s ATACMS missile — Army Tactical Missile System — is a medium range missile that can penetrate about 200 miles into Russian territory, meaning it pushes the Russians back from anywhere within that radius, lest they get pounded by these things.
Previously, the Russians could just amble about on their side of the line, free from any interference, and gather together the forces that they would eventually throw into the meat-grinder to be chewed up by the Ukrainians. Watching the Russians organize themselves in preparation for an attack would make an awesome Netflix reality television show, but it would face a difficult classification. Is this Reality TV or is this comedy?
But now the Ukrainians can interdict. They can disrupt. And they can blow up not only Russians, but now North Koreans as well. It’s a can’t-miss episode.
Putin and his henchmen are the kids on the bus going “whaa-whaa-whaa.” He’s like that freaking kid on the schoolyard that pushes everyone else around, but then buckles when faced with some other kid getting up in his face. Putin’s the kind of kid that races home to tell his folks, who then race to school to threaten fire and brimstone in retaliation, with talk of lawyers, and lawyers, and well, more lawyers. And the boys and girls who sit in the biggest chairs in our schools will often buckle at this onslaught, meaning Vlady’s right back out there on Monday morning, and everyone else should just give him his space because, you know, he’s crazy and his parents are even crazier.
Putin has been threatening the west for as long as there’s been a Putin and for as long as there’s been a west. And we let him succeed in these threats by limiting Ukraine as to how it uses the weapons the west provides. And even with their hands tied behind their backs, the Ukrainians are chewing the Russians up. But as with the western battle tanks, and the Storm Shadow missiles, and the F-16 combat jets, all previous threats of mayhem and nuclear payback have gone the way of their national song “Crickets We Sing With Thee.”
So bollocks on this latest threat, ‘signed’ or not, as if that was supposed to scare us out of our drawers. How many documents have the Russians signed over their history that they didn’t live up to? Like, every single one?
They can huff, and they can puff, and they can bloody-well threaten to blow the house down. And for the rest of us, we should just thank them for mixing up the plot line on that reality show. But aside from that, they’re just full of the most glorious shit, and we should be well used to that by now.
Does anyone really think that Russia could wage war on anyone? Look at Ukraine to start, where they’re getting their asses kicked in any fight that’s face-to-face with the Ukrainians, who are better-trained, better-led, and better armed, albeit with far fewer numbers. Do we really think that Russia could handle Ukraine and any other European nation? Never mind the United States, Poland and Ukraine together could knock the Russians back into their hinterland for good, something that has an appealing ring to it.
As for nuclear weapons, God, Id say please don’t get me started, but it looks like I’ve already started.
Russian technology s about as sophisticated as anything you might give your toddlers at Christmas time. It sounds like Buzz Lightyear, and it looks like Buzz Lightyear, but it’s not a real Buzz Lightyear. I would say that Russian nuclear weapons pose a greater threat to the Russians attempting to fire them than they do to any intended target, that is if the missiles or the operators themselves don’t catch on fire due to careless smoking. Or Vodka abuse. Or both.
If any Russian missiles actually take flight, my bet is we shoot them all down in minutes, leaving the Russians sitting there in a most profound “Oh fuck” moment. That wouldn’t be the worst moment in recorded human history.
Also, if they were to ever use a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine, the Americans would probably take out their navy and airforce in less than an hour, just as a warning. They can threaten to pelt us with potatoes all they like, but please understand that we reserve the right to pick them up and throw them right back at you. You BFB.
And then we could deliver the coup de grace, the piece de la resistance, in the only language the school-yard bully understands.
You started it. You BFB. And this time when those jack-ass parents of your show up, we can give them the kick in the ass they deserve as well. Lawyers be damned.
And all the other kids on the bus will go “yah yah yah!”
I wish to close with a Russian joke. They do have a profound sense of humour, I suppose.
Many Russians are in a long line to get food and vodka. The mood is not good.
One Russian man can’t take it any more.
“Blyat” he yells, using a Russian profanity. “I’m going to kill Putin!”
And off he rages into the blustery night.
An hour later, he returns, and joins the back of the line.
“Did you get him? Did you kill Putin?”
“Blyat,” he says. “The line there is longer than this one.”
NEWSMAGRENFREW 