cheese it, the cops!

putin on the hits

really, i have not taken sides on ukraine so far, and in the first post where i sort of predicted an invasion (feb 27), i speculated that the us, faced with a similar situation, would consider military intervention too. but now let me point out a few things about putin. he consolidated his power and established his reputation with the chechen genocide. people claimed to be worried about security at the olympics, but there is no one you'd rather be handling your security if you don't care how it's done. he used tried and true techniques: rounding up the young man of, e.g., dagestan, torturing them, and dumping their bodies in shallow graves. he may be the richest man in the world, with all the feeling of impunity such a status bequeaths. he has no significant internal opposition, or threat to his political status; by a hundred techniques he has eliminated or isolated opponents. i don't regard him as a classic semi-cracked conqueror a la hitler or napoleon; but he is cagey and extremely aggressive and brutal when he wants to be. there is liable to be again something well-described as an empire when he is done.

restoring calm

yesterday at the white house: meeting of the joint chiefs, defense secretary, cia, etc. what were they discussing? ww3 scenarios, baby. and as they did so, i imagine them sort of sobbing, etc, not because they're sad about the suffering caused in a war, but because they have no realistic way to respond, and to say that the eu is a decadent quasi-state is an understatement; they're drafting capitulation documents right now, which is probably the main contingency plan recommended by the joint chiefs too. you can judge this by the weapon they actually launched, temporarily suspending g8 summit preparations. 

meanwhile ban ki moon urges in his riveting style that calm should be restored to the ukraine. oh that is exactly what putin will be doing over the next few days.

it is absolutely amazing how sluggish the hawking teds are on this. yesterday experts were still doubting, even as the obvious invasion had been in process for a day, that there would be an invasion. a british diplomat on cnn this morning: the solution is for the kiev government to assure its russian-oriented citizens that their interests will be taken into account. by my calculation they have 17 minutes to accomplish that. he says he doubts the russians will go further than the crimea, and he doesn't think they want to annex it. they have already annexed the crimea and the same thing is happening in east/south ukraine that happened there: mysterious armed men, russian flags being raised. i wonder if western experts will notice anything that happens over the next few days, or continue to deal with a reality of their own imagining. 

night wolves

so while i'm in prediction mode: yes, there will further incursions into ukraine, possibly rolling into kiev. no there is no possibility of military resistance. but i'm grooving on the biker gang angle.