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Mar. 13th, 2022 11:21 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
roginHey Friends,
I can't say there is much fannish things going on in my head at them moment but still there is a lot going on and I'd like to put down at least some of it.
The War
Refugees keep pouring in a lot of my friends are voluntering their time, energy, money, living space to arrange places to stay and provide much needed rest and goods. Everyone is coming together to help which is on one hand impressive but also sharpens the edge on the mistreatment of refugees from Syria and Chechnya, Putin's previous victims.
I find it very hard to grapple with this war in Europe, during the last one, which was even closer, I was to young to really grasp the concept. Now I feel an intense need to understand what is going on. Why this happened, to try to anticipate what will happen next even if that is not fully possible.
There are so many spins out there:
The Russian spin:
It is all Nato's fault, they took in the former soviet states which they promised they wouldn't and that provoked Russia. It's abuser's logic of course. The former soviet states fled into NATO because they were so afraid of Russia, NATO just didn't deny them and no contract ever said they can't. Now with the Russian threat looming over Europe, even Sweden, Finnland and Austria talk about joining.
The Urkainian Spin:
We are fighting for our independence and for al of Europe, Europe has to intervene. More than understandable, everybody in that situation would cry for help, but it is also true that this would mean WW3. We hope that WW3 is avoidable yet, that Putin will chew off a part of Ukraine and be content with that for while at least. There's also people like Kasparow, who say, the prize of taking down a dictator only rises the longer you let him go on. Also true. But nuclear power dictators cannot be taken down from the outside.
Nato's spin:
We don't like it, but we will only defend NATO territory. If you can. Big if. Especially if you can without nuclear weapons and complete devastation.
I think I massively missjudged Putin in the past. I thought of him as a criminal who was interested in lining his pockets and staying on top. I thought that all his meddling with the US elections and Brexit was mainly done because it destabilized those countries and Europe. But lately I think he really is an ideological part of the nouveau droite.
He has imperialist ambitions that go beyond the soviet era and he is an autocrat and proud of it. He brought some prosperity to Russia but he does not care about it and he doesn't care about Russians. He's bombing 90% Russian cities, the same way he destroyed Grozny. I cannot fathom what it does to the moral of his soldiers that they should fire rockets and their own cousins in Charkiv. These two countries are so incredibly closely personally related. It is complete insanity and he is sowing hatred in these last three weeks that will last a century at least.
He truly believes all that shit Alexander Dugin (the russian steve Bannon, they even met) writes.
If that is true, then he has to be stopped sooner rather than later and not showing strenght is gonna make things worse.
So drop everything and go to war? That too has been a historically terrible idea. Peace talks alwas seem silly at first but evenually all wars did end in talk and this one has to as well. The talking cannot be abandoned no matter the lies. UNO should be used to it's full extend. UN- mandates should be drafted by truly neutral countries and brought up again and again. Yeah, Russia can and will veto, but it will show a somewhat unified front against them.
The world seems a lot worse off at any rate. I really hope my son is not gonna see a war up close but I am not nearly as sure of it as I was when he was born.
And I wonder how moscow_watcher is doing. I miss her.
I can't say there is much fannish things going on in my head at them moment but still there is a lot going on and I'd like to put down at least some of it.
The War
Refugees keep pouring in a lot of my friends are voluntering their time, energy, money, living space to arrange places to stay and provide much needed rest and goods. Everyone is coming together to help which is on one hand impressive but also sharpens the edge on the mistreatment of refugees from Syria and Chechnya, Putin's previous victims.
I find it very hard to grapple with this war in Europe, during the last one, which was even closer, I was to young to really grasp the concept. Now I feel an intense need to understand what is going on. Why this happened, to try to anticipate what will happen next even if that is not fully possible.
There are so many spins out there:
The Russian spin:
It is all Nato's fault, they took in the former soviet states which they promised they wouldn't and that provoked Russia. It's abuser's logic of course. The former soviet states fled into NATO because they were so afraid of Russia, NATO just didn't deny them and no contract ever said they can't. Now with the Russian threat looming over Europe, even Sweden, Finnland and Austria talk about joining.
The Urkainian Spin:
We are fighting for our independence and for al of Europe, Europe has to intervene. More than understandable, everybody in that situation would cry for help, but it is also true that this would mean WW3. We hope that WW3 is avoidable yet, that Putin will chew off a part of Ukraine and be content with that for while at least. There's also people like Kasparow, who say, the prize of taking down a dictator only rises the longer you let him go on. Also true. But nuclear power dictators cannot be taken down from the outside.
Nato's spin:
We don't like it, but we will only defend NATO territory. If you can. Big if. Especially if you can without nuclear weapons and complete devastation.
I think I massively missjudged Putin in the past. I thought of him as a criminal who was interested in lining his pockets and staying on top. I thought that all his meddling with the US elections and Brexit was mainly done because it destabilized those countries and Europe. But lately I think he really is an ideological part of the nouveau droite.
He has imperialist ambitions that go beyond the soviet era and he is an autocrat and proud of it. He brought some prosperity to Russia but he does not care about it and he doesn't care about Russians. He's bombing 90% Russian cities, the same way he destroyed Grozny. I cannot fathom what it does to the moral of his soldiers that they should fire rockets and their own cousins in Charkiv. These two countries are so incredibly closely personally related. It is complete insanity and he is sowing hatred in these last three weeks that will last a century at least.
He truly believes all that shit Alexander Dugin (the russian steve Bannon, they even met) writes.
If that is true, then he has to be stopped sooner rather than later and not showing strenght is gonna make things worse.
So drop everything and go to war? That too has been a historically terrible idea. Peace talks alwas seem silly at first but evenually all wars did end in talk and this one has to as well. The talking cannot be abandoned no matter the lies. UNO should be used to it's full extend. UN- mandates should be drafted by truly neutral countries and brought up again and again. Yeah, Russia can and will veto, but it will show a somewhat unified front against them.
The world seems a lot worse off at any rate. I really hope my son is not gonna see a war up close but I am not nearly as sure of it as I was when he was born.
And I wonder how moscow_watcher is doing. I miss her.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 06:18 pm (UTC)There's definitely something to that - there's a reason just about all far-right parties in Europe have spent the last few years idolizing Putin. But honestly, that doesn't even scare me half as much as my nightmare version of it; that this isn't even a 20th/21st century conflict. It feels pre-ideology; "I want, I will fabricate a claim and take." It feels like an illusion being taken away, it feels medieval, just with better weapons and bigger stakes - and that includes both sides; I very much doubt that if this goes on much longer, the so-called west will be willing to keep paying higher oil prices just in the name of a country most Americans couldn't find on a map. I hope I'm wrong, maybe I've just been reading too much history recently, but I'm becoming increasingly convinced that there are no new conflicts in Europe, we just learned to put other labels on them for a while.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 06:40 pm (UTC)It feels pre-ideology; "I want, I will fabricate a claim and take."
It does feel like a cabinet war and if you read things like Clausewitz there is a (very unhealthy) logic to it. And if he continues on that path he will not stop at Ukraine.
I also read too much. Awful lot about WWII. I think peacetimes in Europe come to a close, I really wish it wasn't so.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 07:55 pm (UTC)I also read too much. Awful lot about WWII.
And it gets even scarier when you go back further than that too. Basically every war Russia was involved with in the Baltic and Black Sea areas for 650 years was about one thing: Access to ports. Now here's Putin's war starting with access to the Crimea and centered around a gas pipeline to western Europe... We learn nothing.
I think peacetimes in Europe come to a close, I really wish it wasn't so.
Same. I think about how my mum, born in 1946, grew up in an Air Force household expecting war at any time right up until 1989. And now she has to see her kids and grandkids face that future again.
For now, I'm just hoping Putin gets eaten by a bear. In front of cameras so nobody can get blamed for it.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-13 09:11 pm (UTC)We learn nothing.
And we also think everyone is taking money and comfort quite as seriously as we are...
Same. I think about how my mum, born in 1946, grew up in an Air Force household expecting war at any time right up until 1989. And now she has to see her kids and grandkids face that future again.
Yes, this threat looming again is upsetting a lot of older people. My dad (born 1930) is talking about WWII non-stop, my mom (born 1940) about fleeing Vienna as a kids before the Russians came. And my mother in law is from Poland and is basically convinced that the Russians will invade everywhere just for fun.
For now, I'm just hoping Putin gets eaten by a bear. In front of cameras so nobody can get blamed for it.
I approve of this solution. Much better than the "he is sick" thing that is going around everywhere.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 12:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 07:47 am (UTC)I really hope she is going to resurface on some platform.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 10:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 02:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 10:18 pm (UTC)To me it seems like he wants to know what he can do, and Ukraine, Syria and all the others are paying the price for it. I hope I'll see his sorry ass ending.
no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 04:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 10:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2022-03-14 10:45 pm (UTC)