Scream

 Today I just want to scream!

I have spent quite a lot of time lately watching the latest news about Putin's Special Military Operation, no, let's call it what it is, WAR in Ukraine. I have watched information from Russian civilians, and interviews with random people on the streets in Russia.  I have watched what the Russian government has told and not told its people.  I have watched the news reports from multiple journalists across Ukraine.  I have watched interviews with Ukraine civilians.  I tried desperately to understand what is happening and why it is happening.

What has become abundantly and overwhelmingly clear is that this is one man's war.  It is the direct result of one man having too much power for too long.  It is one man who is absolutely following in the footsteps of Adolf Hitler.  All of this because he has too much power and literally no one can talk to him candidly and tell him he is wrong without literally risking being killed.  His closest advisors cannot "advise" him because all they can really do is tell him everything he thinks is correct and everything he wants to do is the right thing to do.  No one can advise him on any negative consequences of anything.  Then when his actions go horribly wrong, like invading Ukraine, he removes his advisors for being wrong or misleading him.  How warped is that?  He is a man no longer living in reality and no one can help him.

Somewhere deep inside Putin knows all of this, but he is a prisoner of his own thinking.  He knows what he is doing has gone wrong.  However, for him it must always be someone else's fault because he cannot be wrong.  Yet he even knows everything is so wrong that his own people, those who actually know him, have to be removed from their positions because he realizes those are the people in the best position to remove him from office on a permanent basis.  The only way to survive is to limit the number of opportunities to remove him.  No one can be trusted.  Putin is and has always been KGB.  He knows how the system works.  He knows that he can be removed with prejudice in the blink of an eye.  One wrong move, one thing overlooked and it can all be over.  He has to eliminate all opposition and somehow make everything work because he has to be right and somehow make sure that everyone sees that he is right no matter what.

Yes, that above paragraph makes no sense, but somehow that is what is going on in Putin's mind.  He is desperately trying to rationalize the irrational.  He will ultimately fail, but at what price?  How many people will it cost?  How much destruction will it take?  How much collateral damage will there be?

 I just want to scream!