Reflections on Putin’s Horrible War in Ukraine
It is unimaginable that we are having another brutal, inhumane, and now doubly nuclear dangerous war in Europe. It is providing much thought and reflection around the world, about how to stop dictators, about appeasement, about dictators collaborating, about living in fear of nuclear confrontation, and now about nuclear plant radiation poisoning. It is all being played out live instantaneously, on tv, on the internet, in daily papers, on social media, undoubtedly on zoom calls, etc. Troop movements and destruction are seen on satellites, drones, passing cars, and a hundred million cell phone cameras.
One trouble is that the Democratic West’s answer of monetary sanctions is going to play out on the average Russian, just as higher gas and petroleum rates are going to play out against those leveling the sanctions.
Just look at the pictures on MSNBC of the leading oligarchs being individually sanctioned. There are no sympathetic people, except maybe the one oligarch who learned to smile with his billions of dollars. I don’t mean to question the CIA, but oligarchs singled out for sanctions are then going to be the last people listened to or getting to see Putin in person.
Just taking down Putin may not end the attack to restore a mythical empire of the Czars or a new Soviet Oligarch Union, similar in conception to Hitler’s lebensraum or Valhalla or the Third Reich. There are no doubt many old timers who remember the CCCP days besides Putin.
Just like Trump infiltrated the government with his incompetent toadies or yes-men over four years, and still is the Ruling King of the Republican Party and Congressional Members, Putin has been in power for a decade, and undoubtedly stacked or converted all military and government positions with his loyalists. The number of Republicans willing to openly stand up to Trump can be named using the fingers of one hand. Even the powers of the House insurrection investigation committee cannot crack open his complicit loyalists. Trump has even opened up the promise of pardons to his loyalists after his 2024 ascension to his next Valhalla. So much for the wishful thinking expressed by many that someone would just take out the mad dictator Putin, who I now call Czar Vlad the Terrible.
We have been taught that still unimaginably destructive and annihilating nuclear weapons arsenals by many countries is a method of nuclear stability and war prevention in the post-war era of WWII. What we clearly see now is that a dictator who acts as mad and threatens using HIS nuclear arsenal can prevent all of humanity from protecting a rather unarmed yet modern nation and democracy from being decimated and subjected to the unjustified invasion. An invasion which violates the UN charter of sovereignty, and is being carried out with disregard for war crimes that decimate civilian lives and property. The UN vote on condemning Russia’s actions was opposed by four other nations, but left unendorsed by 35 other nations, including China. We greatly fear a collusion of China with Russia, supporting them financially and through trade, and even worse, opening up another aggressive front.
Since nuclear mutually assured destruction does not stop the worst kind of wars, we have no justification for keeping nuclear arsenals, especially since they easily come under the sole management of dictators or would-be dictators. Since Putin put his nuclear forces under alert, not only does everyone in the West tremble, but everyone in Russia should be trembling because the mutually assured destruction will definitely fall on them, initiated by a dictator who is acting like he must be appeased or given a way out of the unlimited plan of conquest which he clearly has. Giving a viciously conquering dictator a face-saving way out is an unheard of appeasement, abhorred since the days of WWII and Hitler.
I wish that I could say “finally” and address the unprecedented and illegal attack on the largest nuclear power plant in Europe for Zaporizhzhia next to the city of Enerhodar, on the photograph below. We are trying to explain it by the unsupervised attack by a local commander, but even after it became the worldwide media story and threat of the day and night, Russia continued taking over the plant. The same as it took over the still dangerous Chernobyl reactor site.
My guess of an interpretation of the photo below is that just below the blast site in the photo, are open pools of previous reactor cores, cooling by letting short-lived isotopes decay for something like five years. The perhaps cylinders circled at the bottom of the photo may be the older cores cast into still breathable concrete containers. If that explosive had hit the cores in the pool, it would have vaporized high radioactive debris into the winds, which blew right into Russian held East Ukraine, and then across the Sea of Azov into the Caucuses and Russian wheat fields. So much for gaining wheat exports by invading Ukraine. Today, it is estimated that there are 30 tons of plutonium in the spent fuel. If inhaled or ingested, even a minute amount, it can cause death by cancer. The plant has been captured by the Russians. Fortunately, they are allowing workers to rotate shifts, so fresh crews are in charge. Three of the six reactors are being operated at lower power.
The explosive could also have damaged the cooling system of a pool, or even partially or fully emptied the pool, leading to overheated cores until some brave souls went into reconstruct the pool and its plumbing.
Apparently, one rocket did hit a containment building, and there was damage to a reactor. Ukraine has 15 nuclear reactors, which supply half of its electricity. We still need the nuclear reactors that we have in order to continue their clean energy in the face of rapid climate change. We do have the option to not buy the next batch from Russia, though, or even from Putin’s supporter, Xi Jinping.
