Set aside for the moment the thousands of lives lost and the destruction of cities in Putin’s unjust war against Ukraine. Focus instead on how the war will end if Putin continues to disregard warnings of a potential Third World War if he crosses the red line by using chemical weapons and other Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD). This is what makes my heart to bleed.
NATO has served notice that if Putin dares crosses into an inch of any NATO nation, it will join the fray, because NATO has a charter which states that, “An attack on one is an attack on all.”
Putin disregarded the warning and has threatened to use chemical weapons in his war. The world is aware of how Putin used barrel bombs to deliver chemical weapons on innocent civilians in Syria.
In that war, the world threatened Putin that if he used chemical weapons he will be punished, but he went ahead to use it while the world watched from afar without doing anything against this butcher. The inaction has given Putin the assurance that if he uses such weapons again, nothing will be done to him, and that is the danger.
Putin has got his back on the wall, and he is desperately trying to save face. He thought he could easily walk over Ukraine and go further to annex Poland. Nearly two months into the war, Putin’s army is yet to take over Ukraine, while thousands of his soldiers are killed. Many of his generals have been shot dead by Ukrainian snipers, and the situation seems mucky. He is now acting like a wounded tiger.
History teaches us that autocrats get more paranoid the longer they stay in power. They know they are not going to retire, but may be assassinated or toppled.
When the going gets tough, they try to get scapegoats within their inner circles. Putin is a typical example of an autocrat on the verge of defeat. His invasion of Ukraine has gone catastrophically bad.
Look at how the Ukrainians sunk the Moskva, Russia’s main warship in the Black Sea. This is the largest naval asset to be sunk by a missile since World War Two (WWII), and it is humiliating to Putin. His ego has been seriously bruised. It is like the battle between David and Goliath. He has purged one hundred and fifty spies and close associates as scapegoats for his failure to take over Ukraine.
His image will be seriously dented if he loses this war, and as such he will do everything, including the use of chemical weapons to win, damn the consequences.
Just imagine how the world would have looked like if Adolf Hitler was in possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction when Allied Forces cornered his army, and he saw defeat staring him in the face. I can bet with my last Kufuor Dollar that all mankind would have been losers.
Today, the world has come face to face with another lunatic like Hitler, who has nothing to lose if he plunges the world into a Third World War. The civilised world should not wait on events while danger gathers. We must not stand by as peril draws closer and closer.
In fact, the civilised world must meet Putin’s threat now. Waiting for him to release his WMD before we strike is not self-defense but suicidal. From all indications, Putin has no regard for conventions of war or rules of war, not to talk of morality. To him the Geneva Convention doesn’t matter anymore, so he can do whatever he wants to do. Such a scatterbrain must be caged before he does irreparable harm to the world.
The Pope, in his Easter Sunday message warned the world of the “troubling risk of nuclear war” in reference to Putin’s threat to use WMD in Ukraine, and that is worrisome. The world can pass through this time of peril and carry on the work of peace if we come together to confront this evil.
The guy is like a child who is holding a sharp implement. If you want to collect the weapon from the hand of the child, you need to cajole and cunningly collect the sharp implement from his hand; else you will end up wounding yourself and the child if you forcefully snatch the implement from his hand. Putin is a dangerous serpent. But somebody should tell this reckless guy that war crime and any crime for that matter have no status bar.
More than seventy years after the WWII, war criminals are still being hunted down and hauled to stand trial. The MOSSAD of Israel is still hunting and killing those who took part in the Holocaust which saw the murder of six million Jews. In this small village called the world, you can run but you can’t hide. Every dog has got its day, and Putin’s Day of Judgment will come, no matter how long it will take.
President Joe Biden of the US has categorically stated that what Putin is doing in Ukraine amounts to genocide, and it is rightly so. The ground is being gradually prepared for Putin to face the music. And he will not face the music alone, since his generals are out there supervising the murder of men, women, and children. For now, the pendulum is swinging right so he can afford to swagger and boast, but when the pendulum starts to swing left; he will see and smell pepper. Surely the hangman’s noose is being prepared for him.
North Korea, China, and Iran are secretly supporting Putin in his crazy enterprise because birds of the same feathers flock together. China continues to threaten Taiwan, and Iran is involved in a proxy war in Yemen, while North Korea, a pariah and secretive state continues to fire missiles indiscriminately into the sea. These three nations constitute the axis of evil. They stand against the civilised world because the civilised world stands on their way.
I sincerely miss Donald Trump, former president of the US. It was he who told the UN General Assembly that if Little Rocket man, Kim Jong-un, of North Korea did not stop his crazy adventure, and stop firing his dangerous missiles, the US will totally destroy North Korea. And he meant it. Together with Benjamin Netanyahu, they threatened a preemptive strike at Iran if that nation continues to develop a nuclear bomb. The world needs leaders like Trump. We shall overcome! I am still mourning the death of the Messiah so I have no lips to hold cigar today. Forgive me!!!
From Eric Bawah