Over And Over Again

 So here we have it: humanitarian crisis. Tens of thousands killed. Civilians. Caught in the crossfire of a political whim that allowed mass casualty events like those we are seeing in Ukraine. Russian forces continue to shell non-military targets and refuse to allow peaceful evacuations along mandated corridors. The Russian Army is blowing up theaters, hospitals and train stations. 

This is not about wearing masks. This is not about getting vaccinated. This is about one of the world's largest armies launching catastrophic amounts of munitions onto non-military targets. 

This is not actors slapping comedians at award shows. This is not keeping up with the Kardashians. This is the wholesale slaughter of a group of people who have the misfortune of being in the way of a world leader whose desire is to take back what he perceives as his empire.

Even if that empire has to be reduced to rubble first. 

And do you know what you find in rubble? Bodies. Men, women, and children. Dead. In piles. Mass graves. 

Not a video game. There is no "respawn" or health bonus. These are non-combatants. Non-player-characters. What we tend to refer to here in the United States as "innocent bystanders." 

Except there are no innocents in the eyes of Vladimir Putin. He seems to be bent on genocide, removing all those who might remind him of the empire Russia lost. As a country, the United States is attempting to do the moral equivalent of giving him a parking ticket. We are imposing sanctions, fining him and his country for acting in a manner unbefitting for a world that has already seen two world wars. We have suggested that we are all willing to pay six dollars a gallon for gasoline to get him to stop his aggression. 

The Ukrainian people do not have that option. The gasoline they worry about currently is the stuff with which they are filling their Molotov cocktails. Vyacheslav Molotov was a Soviet foreign minister just before World War II who oversaw the partitioning of Finland. That was a time when the former Soviet Union was looking to expand its territory. The "Molotov Moniker" was a bit of a slap in the face of the imperialistic overreach of the Russians. Which is why they threw flaming bottles of gasoline at the invaders. A million of them. Soviet Russia sent a million men to try and take over Finland. Finland is about half the size of Ukraine. 

It should be noted here that back in 1940, the Soviet Union did not have hypersonic missiles and nuclear warheads. The Russian Army has those now. They are currently using them on Ukrainian civilians. The Ukrainian civilians have Molotov cocktails. Some things never change.