DAREN JONESCU

Enjoying the view from Limbo

A Clear Message, To Be Sure

by · Published · Updated

You cannot make this stuff up. Here is the first sentence of a new Politico rah-rah piece on the United Nations’ “tough” response to Vladimir Putin’s military invasion of Ukraine:

U.N. Security Council members had one clear message for Russian President Vladimir Putin: We know what you’re up to, and you need to quit it now — or else.

“Or else” what? We all know the answer, and so, of course, does Putin:

Or else we’ll keep saying, “Geez, if you keep this up much longer, in too many more countries, we might have to really seriously consider some targeted sanctions against a few of the Russian industries that are not absolutely vital to certain Western investment interests.”

“We know what you’re up to.” Gee, there’s a great insight. “And you need to quit it now.” That’ll show him.

Hopeless, laughable, mewling emptiness from slavering idiots and enablers. Ukraine is being torn apart right now because of the years of inaction, cowardice, and duplicity from these brave U.N. talkers. But happily, their day will come. They will be denying its arrival until the last possible moment, as they enjoy their champagne meetings, well-shined shoes, and A-list Rolodexes, while innocent people fight and die to save the lands these big talkers threw to the wolves. But it will come.

Just to be clear, because nothing is more typical of today’s political climate than the fake wisdom of the cynical rejoinder, “Then are you saying…?”

Am I saying an all-out war with Putin is a good idea for the West right now? Certainly not. It would never be a good idea. I am saying that if war comes, it will be the direct result of two decades of a distracted, greedy, navel-gazing West appeasing, enabling, and excusing a post-Soviet Russian tyrant with a twisted sense of personal glory and a “nationalistic” view of Russian territorial claims that was formed during the Soviet empire. Vladimir Putin started young at this strategy of his, and has been working on it continuously and openly for twenty years. He has systematically shifted his country away from its nascent and shaky democratic efforts of the 1990s, and toward one-man oligarchic authoritarian rule, brazenly killing and imprisoning opponents and critics along the way (“But hey, who doesn’t do that?” Tucker Carlson whines, while licking both Trump’s and Putin’s shoes simultaneously, as only the fork-tongued can do), unapologetically canceling Russian constitutional provisions designed to limit presidential duration and power, and increasingly declaring his intentions of reestablishing the Soviet empire as his personal kingdom, by direct military force and/or the propping up of pro-Kremlin puppet governments, as required.

He started young, but he is getting old now. A tyrannical thug does not spend twenty years in power publicly strategizing and scheming for his great moment of “national victory,” and then simply slink off to his cave to sleep on a pile of money. Anyone who thought that was Putin’s sole motive — personal wealth and nothing more — is a fool of world-historical proportions. He will not retire without his moment of victory, the vindication of all his maneuverings and provocations. He needs results, and he needs them now. The problem is that those results, which should have died stillborn in the crazed imagination of an ineffectual sociopath, now feel very much within his grasp. This feeling could have been cut off early and decisively, if anyone in the West had cared to focus on anything but oil, money, and “strategic partnerships” for five minutes, years before we arrived at this ugly moment of truth.

But now, due to small-mindedness and plain stupidity, we are here, and simply wishing we could ignore the reality before our eyes is not an option. Or more precisely, it is an option, the preferred option of today’s global establishment; but choosing it will constitute one great leap closer to mankind’s final abyss.

China is watching and learning. And what they are learning is that it takes little more than a bit of persistence and nerve to back the dying West into a corner of befuddled and incoherent babble.

Meanwhile, the former Soviet slaves who recognize all too well what is happening, and what it means, speak without military strength or the ability to punish Putin with serious economic sanctions — but speak with all the courage and dignity that the powerful West lacks. 

From Lithuania’s Prime Minister, responding to Putin’s “recognition” of “independence” for the first two Ukrainian regions he wishes to annex this week:

Tags:

You may also like...