Robbie Thomas
Russia/Ukraine Situation
I suppose you don’t need a smartass blogger like myself to tell you that we are dealing with a historic moment. As of 25 Feb 2022, we are seeing Russia invade Ukraine. There were quite a few things I didn’t know and seeing Russia run with the invasion was surprising to me. However, I suppose I shouldn’t be too terribly surprised, just some weeks before the invasion, we saw how Russia was building bases near the eastern border of Ukraine.
I have been watching the news, mainly CBS for the 24-hour news with a little MSNBC (not a fan of them but CBS had some issues at one point). I also watched some Agenda-Free TV coverage as well. Besides that, it’s been mainly the PBS Newshour and also the local all-news AM station WWJ. It’s also scary to hear the air raid sirens in Kviv.
Note: I don’t like MSNBC and their fanatical left broadcasting, but this video does some justice.
I watched the PBS Newshour on 24 Feb 2022 and during a segment with some professionals, they talked about a scary scenario. The three people being interviewed by Judy Woodruff were discussing the idea of Putin going past Ukraine and looking to invade other neighboring eastern European countries. This will have a bigger possibility for the United States to seriously put boots on the ground. Two of the three people in this discussion stated that some European countries don’t have the defense capability to defend against Russia. If Putin does have a winning favor in Ukraine and goes further, we might see a good number of US soldiers on the ground. Here the segment:
Another podcaster I listened to is Patrick Bet-David. He did an emergency podcast while he was in Mexico City on business. He had his sidekick Adam Sosnick starting the broadcast. I like some of the things Bet-David said, such as he doesn’t know some of the things prior and currently going on. He also posed a good question, “Would this situation happen if Trump was president?” and he responded to his own question, “I don’t know.”
I found myself imagining myself in one of these eastern Ukrainian towns or cities during this situation. What should I do? Get some cash and gas and get the hell out? I’d probably fail at that. There are quite a few people who just don’t really know what to do. It’s not so easy to just stay calm with that seriously bad situation. I had a bad vibe about the Russian invaders going to Chernobyl, that happened as well. Not good.
Watching this coverage reminded me of the 1991 Persian Gulf War coverage and also the 1999 Kosovo coverage. In 1991, I was in 2nd grade and we had CNN on the TV. I remember Peter Arnett, Bernard Shaw, and the late John Holliman were doing an audio broadcast in Iraq. During that time, I was a kid who wanted to watch Looney Tunes and any of the shit Nickelodeon had to offer at that time, but this got my attention. Later, me and my 2nd/3rd grade class of special ed kids discussed it one day at school.
While watching this back in that time, I found Peter Arnett to be “scary-looking.” Also in the video below, in the beginning, future vice-president Dick Cheney is mentioned with a few laughs following.
In late March 1999, I watched some breaking news coverage of the Kosovo War. I think I was watching CNN and was on the phone with a friend/bandmate at the time. At that time, I was in a now-failed band called Live Evil with me playing guitar. We were discussing the idea that we should record this coverage and play it during one of our gigs. I asked a stupid question, “You think they will cancel school tomorrow?” He laughed and said, “They ain’t canceling school tomorrow for this shit.”
That was a god-damn dumb question. Also, then-President Bill Clinton made a speech that day.
War is an ugly damn business and I surely don’t want to see this happen. Although it’s not the same scenario, take a look at Iraq and how much of a failure that was. No weapons of mass destruction were found and we pretty much created ISIS. We spent a lot of god damn money for that failed war. I’ll say this, I don’t exactly know how this Ukraine situation will play out. It could end very soon or it may take a few years or more. Also, a scary statistic is Russia is in 1st place in stored nuclear warheads with the United States in a close 2nd. A far 3rd place is China. Let’s hope we don’t go nuclear on this one. Or ever…
When I get some extra time off, I do want to watch that CNN Persian Gulf war coverage.