This is inhumane and deliberate terrorism. The children’s hospitals running in the dark the only lights flashlights or the occasional desk top light. They are trying to hurt the people, make them so scared they will give up, force them to choice to either freeze to death or give into Putin. The west needs to stop this. We have the air systems to stop these missiles, but we wont use them because we want them only operated by us, OK so send the Nato forces in to run them. This is about people, look around you, this is about your neighbors, the little kids, the old people, the workers, those struggling now to find food, water, and stay warm enough to live. Hugs
Retired general says this move would be a win for Putin
Scottie's Playtime 
Yes. This is where a grim logic of warfare takes over.
The salutary lesson here is that Russia is conducting an air bombing campaign as was processed by both sides in WWII (the US & Britain raising it an industrial scale). There is a horrid rationale to this. It is ‘what you do’… Which is why War is a ghastly business, normal ethical considerations are twisted out of focus.
There is also the tortuous diplomatic dance conducted as a backdrop. The NATO reluctance to be visibly on the ground being reminiscent of the problems facing FDR during 1940 and early to mid 1941 in supporting Britain. He too had a strident base in the USA against involvement.
And ‘meat grinder’….there is another tactic from the WWII; the then USSR was very adept at using that one.
Pity help The Innocents. It is said Truth is the first casualty in War, I would suggest it is one of the first, The Innocents are ahead of it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hello Roger. So you would say the more things change the more they are the same? I do not understand the western powers. We have the air defense systems to stop the incoming fire for the most part. But we wont deploy it because it would require the NATO people to run it. But we wont let Ukraine use the weapons we gave them to defend themselves to do back to Russia what is being done to them. Russia is being allowed to indiscriminately destroy Ukraine and if Ukraine was allowed to do that back to Russia, then Russia would stop. Russia couldn’t take it. But they are being protected while they lash out at Ukraine. It is wrong and so unfair. I don’t blame the leaders of Ukraine being upset over the rules being imposed on them. Hugs
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi there Scottie.
I’m afraid so Scottie. What is going on in Ukraine is a narrative which has been played out many, many times in the history of human conflict and diplomacy.
The situation facing the Western Leaders is layered with concerns over home politics, and budgetary concerns conflicting with the face-off with Russia, which has been building up for some time.
They can maneuver support into Ukraine, but they cannot be seen to be there; that will be deemed as escalation which allows the Russian government to tell its population they are being threatened by ‘The West’. In the folk-memory of the russian population that raises powerful emotions and will ensure support for the Kremlin, irrespective.
The Kremlin Court overplayed its hand in this one, it gave the excuse that many in the West had needed to push back.
Realpolitik? This is how it works. Normal everyday ethics do not get involved.
In the ‘West Wing’, the character Leo McGary says: ‘There are two things you do not want to know how they are made. Sausages and Foreign Policy,’
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hello Roger. Even though I was once involved in foreign operations in Berlin in the 1980s, I admit I don’t understand much of it. I mean I did not understand what / why I was doing what I was ordered to do then, and I am not sure I get it now.
OK so we have the tech, we have the tools. How do we move forward to rectify the situation? I have heard that one of the reasons the West doesn’t want to move hard against the Russians is because a long protracted conflict that keeps draining Russia is in the Western powers favor. Really? Have we not seen that the Russians are a paper tiger enough? I am sorry Roger, but the EU says Ukraine can join, NATO says Ukraine is fast tracked to join, OK then, let’s stop the deaths of our future club member. If they are going to be part of us, then every future death from non-direct fighting is our fault and on us.
Roger I look at this like two kids fighting hard. The adults are standing around saying how unfair it is that the one boy is suffering so badly because the other kid took stuff from him and attacked him, but the adults won’t step in to make the bully stop hurting the attacked boy. The adults are shouting encouragement and reaching in to sop up the blood in the attacked kid’s eyes while warning the bad kid to be careful not to hit with a hammer but not stopping the attacking kid from hitting the attacked kid in the nuts. I am sorry, but this is how it seems to me. I cannot justify this. Please tell me how I am wrong. A month of the US or other NATO country stopping the incoming missiles and letting the Ukraine hit back as they are being hit would change this whole thing, stopping it. If Russia lost its power as Ukraine has, they would sue Ukraine to stop the war. Putin would be out by his own people. That is what is pissing me off. We are watching one kid get pummeled with one hand tied behind them while the other boy gets help from his friends NK and China. Well that is how I see it and it upsets me. Hug
LikeLiked by 1 person
That is an excellent analogy Scottie and from an ethical and humanitarian stance irrefutable.
Sadly the world is mired and polluted by prejudices.
I’ll cite the case the the Syrian Civil War, which admittedly was a very complex conflict with a distinct lack of angels.
Anyway, as far as one wing and very vocal wing of the UK Left was concerned Russia could do no wrong and was there to help while the UK and USA only had to sneeze Eastwards and they were out their screaming ‘outrage’, they even managed to influence a government intention to confront Russia (not toe to toe you understand). This was all down to rampant anti USA and UK government hysteria.
They also tried to discredit the White Hats a group monitoring human rights abuses by Russia’ Syrian client govt.
The same folk are making excuses for Russia now and trying to foist the blame onto the USA and NATO.
Blind, prejudice like a mirror image of MAGA.
This Scottie, good friend, is one of the manifold reasons you never see true justice and fairness in the world.
Take care.
LikeLiked by 1 person