Some Facts About The War In Ukraine Sometimes a reporter will ask a crazy question, other times they ask a cringe worthy one. Still other seem to be stupid to most of us. This doesn’t matter in the scheme of things however because this is a free country where a reporter can ask anything they want, but on the other side it doesn’t mean the question has to be answered. Apparently in Russia, you better not ask certain questions or even make certain statements or you could be put in jail for fifteen years, and by the time the sentence is served, you still might not get out or even worse die in jail. Man’s inhumanity to man is on display and one would have thought by this time we would have been too advanced for that to happen anymore, and yet it is still happening in many countries in the world. Have we ever improved in respect to this over the centuries? If we look back, the world was even more savage in centuries past. You may wonder what I am basing this on. Take Europe for example. Most of the countries in Europe have been getting along with each other. It seems only Russia has broken this trend and attacked its neighbor. Some say this is because Putin doesn’t want NATO on his door step. At first glance one might say this is the reason, but when they examine the personality of Putin and look back at everything he has said over the years, the real problem is he wants to be an emperor of a huge empire. I believe eventually Putin and Xi Jinping will have a break. The first reason being both men have ambitions which will eventually clash and another reason is Putin is going too far and the Chinese leader wants financial world domination and Putin’s recklessness is turning many countries in the world against Putin and he is becoming a pariah and is bad for business. Apparently, it is one thing for the Chinese to persecute and even kill people inside China, but another for invasions of peaceful countries. The brutality of the invasion is being broadcast all over the world for everyone to see. The horrors of war have become a staple of television and we can see civilians just trying to live their lives being blown apart as the buildings and streets are being reduced to rubble by Russian bombs and missiles. Genocide is taking place. It seems Putin is frustrated because he is not able to replace those local and federal governments with his own puppet government so he has decided to just eliminate as many people as he can to pound the Ukraine into submission. Can you imagine what we could have given to the Ukraine to protect itself if we didn’t leave billions of dollars’ worth of weapons in Afghanistan. That was incredible and one of the most stupid things we have ever done. Want to know what we left? These figures are from a published article, up to 22,174 Humvee vehicles, about 2,000 armored vehicles, over 64,000 machine guns, about 42,000 pickup trucks and SUVs, 358,530 assault rifles, 126,295 pistols, about 200 artillery pieces, there was also a lot of aircraft which included 95 state-of-the-art helicopters, all sorts of war planes and civilian type planes. Also included were construction equipment like Bull Dozers. This could have turned the war around in the Ukraine. Remember this equipment became the property of the Taliban and there is a rumor one or more of our most advanced helicopters went to Russia and China to be disassembled and examined. I have to say it does my heart good to see how Ukraine’s neighbors have shown they are with Ukraine by contributing weapons and such with some of the leaders of these countries actually going to the Ukraine to meet with the president. That was a powerful sight and no doubt must have truly angered Putin, but by the same token it gives hope to the Ukrainian people. Poland had been doing an incredible job in helping refugees. Poland has a population of a little over 37 million people. It is said as of the writing of this article 3 million refugees have left the Ukraine and 1.5 million are in Poland being helped. That is almost 5% of the Polish population. It took nerve for countries that border Russia to offer weapons to the Ukraine and the Baltic countries did it. I give a salute to their courage and only wish we had that same courage. When we talk about the 27 planes Poland has offered the U.S. to give to the Ukraine, the truth is those planes wouldn’t make much of a difference against the 1500 Russian planes, but it’s the idea. When we show we are too scared to give them to the Ukrainians we show how weak we are. There is no way of knowing if we showed more strength if it could change Putin’s mind on the war, but it certainly doesn’t help things when we show our weakness throughout our entire administration. Many Democrats and Republicans are joining forces in the government to support more direct aid, including the kind of aid which would be of great help to the Ukrainians. One of the problems which is being talked about is the fact we are slow walking our aid. The Ukrainians need the aid immediately, and they need it continuously. One cannot turn on the radio or television without hearing about how we need to start drilling for oil again. They talk about the nonsense of protecting the earth by not cutting down on oil use, which shows they really don’t care about the environment, but by getting the oil from our enemies. It is being asked over and over what kind of sense does this make? Drilling for oil anywhere on the earth takes the same toll and as a matter of fact our oil is some of the cleanest. Pipe lines are also much safer for the environment than transporting oil by truck, and yet our pipelines are being shut down. I have to say the environment is just a false issue. The true issue here is some politicians want to weaken our country and they are doing a good job. The people who are going to feel the pinch of high oil prices the most live in cold areas where the price of heating oil plus gas will hit over five dollars a gallon or more and many people will be freezing next winter. If we pump oil and supply Europe with it, we could break the Russian hold on Europe and hurt the Russian economy, which we should be doing, it would go a long way to stopping the war.
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