We are today at a point of inflection in human history. It is the ‘New World Order’ spearheaded by the West v. the ‘Old World Order’, represented by the East.
Whereas the East would coerce cooperation; the West would promote collaboration. So far, so good.
Whereas Russia is emboldened in their malicious and malevolent assault on Ukrainian citizens by NATO’s response with only economic sanctions, NATO appears to be weak. Even so, they and are doing their damnedest to appear strong; not with bullets, but bullshit. So long as Russia keeps its troops out of the E.U., NATO is prepared to let Ukrainians be slaughtered.
Europe does not want to escalate the Russian gambit into a broader war involving all of Europe, and so it does everything it possibly can to help Ukraine, short of putting its own troops in the line of fire. It is doing a lot. It isn’t doing enough, when people are dying or giving up their life’s possessions and fleeing to ???. Exposed and Afraid. With their children. Their entire lives will be tainted by this business, if they are lucky enough to survive.
NONE OF THIS WOULD BE HAPPENING TODAY, if China stood up and said to Putin, ‘Withdraw your troops,’ – but they do not. The World would have had a better chance and a shorter ride with COVID-19 had China notified the World when it first got a whiff of the virus – but they did not.]
China will not stand up for Ukraine, but they will release a dove every now and then in the news, asking the two sides to negotiate.
NATO will not stand up for Ukraine, but they will supply Ukrainians with weapons to fight a war against a pirate whom they cannot defeat.
???
If China is willing to watch the slaughter and displacement of so many innocents at the hands of a brutal [expletive deleted], what do you suppose is in the back of their minds?
If Putin is successful in obtaining guarantees that what he leaves of Ukraine will not join NATO, why, he has succeeded in halting the evolution of NATO into the U.N.’s global police force. That’s good for China too because they would know, when they move on Taiwan, that they will only have to deal with the US and its regional allies, and not all of Europe’s military (or the U.N.’s) as well.
The global response to COVID was to focus on the avenues and channels of business, to keep them open -propping up folks currently working and businesses/corporations currently operating- but support for the vulnerable was an after thought. Mention of their plight was made by our federal NDP leader, but, his party supported the government without the promise of supports for people looking for work, as I was, and I was not the only one. And let us not forget that SARS warned us of our susceptibility to pandemics and governments did little to nothing with the information.
The global response to Russia’s attack on Ukraine is eerily similar: Democracies around the World are ‘with Ukraine’ like my government was ‘with the poor and longer term unemployed’ during the pandemic. Oh, they’ll talk about Basic Income some day, just not today and ‘We don’t know when exactly we can get to that…so you will have to fend for yourselves in the meantime…’ sort of thing.
Am I missing something, or are the ethics and convictions of the modern world determined by $$$ and nothing else? Whomever has the $$$ must shoulder the blame.
China could end this RIGHT NOW. They could promise to remain neutral at the very least and invite NATO into the European conflict. But t hey do not.
China is playing Xi’s game, just like Russia is playing Putin’s. The citizens of both nations are being duped by the leaders they revere. Shame on those leaders. Right now the slaughter of the innocents on a scale never before seen is happening. But China does nothing.
‘All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.’ The famous quote by Edmund Burke is even more relevant right now than when he uttered it.
China does nothing. NATO isn’t doing enough; once Russia declares victory, or is allowed to keep what they took already, what NATO is doing now, well, even that amounts to nothing. If he can survive the ‘sanctions’, why he now owns Ukraine.
Thousands dead. Millions displaced. Genocide.
The evil coming appears to be a tripartite world divided between Russia, China, and America, with wars ongoing and people dying in the margins between the three power blocks; just as Orwell imagined when he watched Churchill, Stalin, Roosevelt et al. divvy up the post WWII world.
China could earn for itself some good karma, to dispel the bad karma it has incurred over the COVID-19 outbreak in not warning the World in good time, were it to rein in Putin. RIGHT NOW.
If China does nothing, then Xi IS NOT A ‘good man’. If the leaders of NATO do nothing but talk and help at arms-length, they aren’t ‘good men’ either -not for the Ukrainian kids who will die in the assault. What good does saying ‘We are with Ukraine’ do them? It only does something for the utterer and that is to make them feel better about doing NOTHING.
Let us all be good people. Let us stand beside and in front of Ukraine, rather than ‘behind Ukraine’.
Our creator is watching.
