A *Certain Incredibly Well-Known Politician/Leader of the Free World of Yesteryear Once Declared: **"Better dead than red!"

Hey, not if it/that means the obliteration of our species - made in God's own image - from the face of Planet Earth...

*'Everyone' knows the individual concerned, but if you reckon you don't, here're 3 clues (fit for a crossword puzzler): *conspiracy-ridden *republican (NB the small 'r') royalty *everyone remembers where they were 

**And no, I'm not alluding to the century-and-a-half plus conflict between communism and capitalism here, but obviously to the age-old conflict now bursting anew into open conflagration in the Middle East.

Once Again Our Planet Appears On a (Sure as Heck) Trajectory Towards Armaggeddon & Oblivion...Beginning in the Middle East & (Possibly Quite Literally) MUSHROOMING Out From There

 Dear LORD, save us from ourselves and help us (homo *sapiens) before it's forever too late!

*I'll leave it up to an impartial observer from another planet/visiting 'alien' or otherwise to conjecture as to the merit or otherwise of the human species being thus attributed innate wisdom!

(As I've Said So Many Times Before -"but No-one's Listening"(As Smeagol-Gollum Once Declared to Samwise Gamgee & Frodo Baggins)), Continually Poking the Borax in Vladimir Putin's Face - However Undoubtedly Justifiably - Will Only End in Tears - For All Us Earth-Dwellers

Yes, war rarely ends in any real victory for anyone - least of all for those (however innocently and unjustifiably) caught up in it... 

President Biden's Unexpected Visit to Ukraine a *"Spectacular Strategic Move"? **Spectacular Strategic Stuff-Up, Rather...

And whatever folk have unkindly said about the unfortunate former United States President, Jimmy Carter, even he could teach Joe Biden a lesson or two in realpolitik in foreign affairs. Especially at this time. 

*/** Certainly 'spectacular' in terms of greatly hastening the likelihood of WW111, and 'strategic' in thus giving Vladimir Putin all the justification before his own people he could possibly wish for in using it as an all too convenient pretext for upping the ante with the West over Ukraine, claiming - in not all that far-fetched a manner - that the U S is all but engaging in a proxy war (via Ukraine) already with Russia (supplying them with all but the most powerful of weaponry to prosecute the war successfully with Moscow), so, hey, who can now blame us (Russians) for blowing the Americans' cover and calling this what it evidently is, i.e. a full-fledged assault upon our (Russian people's) essential sovereignty and nationhood?

Woe Betide a West Sleepwalking - Nay, Now Actively, Consciously Marching - Toward WW111: Blithely Ignoring, Miscalculating a Rabid Russian Bear 'With Nothing Left to Lose': So You're Telling Me/Us All That the Russian Leader's a Madman, But Not Mad Enough to Use Nuclear Weapons When Push Comes to Shove & When Backed Up Against a Wall? Then I'm Sorry - YOU'RE The Mad One

"The war [in Ukraine] has (just/now) gone to a (whole) new level" - "the Russians are getting sick of losing". As one German woman on the street in Deutschland said the other evening: "I have a bad feeling" (about her Government's sending of high-powered German 'Leopard tanks', at the behest/request of the American Administration/European Parliament/Union, to the frontlines in Ukraine); "I'm afraid how Putin will react."

Exactly/precisely. Couldn't have put it better myself. 

Meanwhile (according to BBC Radio) tensions in the ever-fraught Middle East are once again - surprise, surprise - rising/"excalating". (That latter adjective being employed, oddly and ironically enough, by United States Secretary of State Anthony 'double take', blind leading the blind, he of blinkered thinking Blinken, who has the sheer gall to be warning of this very thing whilst undertaking a fly-in visit there over coming days, whilst 'back in the USA' he and the Biden Administration are doing their level best to escalate tensions with Russia to the point that if WW111 eventually eventuates, well who'd'a guessed.)

Postscript: Where are you Angela (Merkel), when you and your nation so desperately need you...you *ought to have left the helm in Deutschland earlier, in time to make a ***successful run for the leadership in the United Nations, that ****oh so useless and ineffectual body of platitude purveyors...

*As is admittedly common for me - and doubtless somewhat annoying and frustrating for my readership -  a whole mass of contradictions-in-terms, for obviously were Merkel to have remained at Germany's helm she'd never have even been able to make a run for United Nations Secretary-General. And of course she didn't do so, ultimately both losing her position (by her own volition) as German Chancellor as well as the opportunity to seek that leadership role in the UN. And admittedly only a few **select politicians throughout the world have ever managed to perform such Lazarus-like feats and come back out of the wild blue yonder to regain political power when their nations most desperately needed them. 

**Wartime British Prime Minister Winston Churchill obviously being one of these to readily spring to mind.

***For at the time of the last leadership contest thereabouts, one which incidentally featured former UN #3 Helen Clark, one-time, long-serving New Zealand prime minister, it was well 'bandied about' that the only area (as in major world region) that hadn't had a U N Secretary-General up to that point had been the old 'Eastern Bloc', and that therefore if a credible leadership contender had emerged from such a place they'd have been hands-on favourites to succeed the then retiring UN Secretary.

And guess where Ms Merkel herself haled from? Yes, the old Eastern Germany, very much a part of that selfsame 'bloc' only 33-or so odd years ago...

****Of course one could also legitimately ask why anyone, let alone someone of such political gravitas as Merkel, would be even remotely interested in heading up such a body of incompetents, to which I can only suggest that while she may well not (have) be(en), she could hardly do worse than the present (not to mention previous) incumbent/s of said office. 

Moreover - and infinitely more than Germany itself - 'what the world (so desperately) needs now' is such a tried and true individual who has proven so adept at foreign affairs over such a long spell, one who indeed showed herself well capable of helping resolve global standoffs and crises; for who can really deny that we have come to a time when our world stands upon the very precipice and threshold of calamitous ruin? 

Meanwhile back in your homeland you've been succeeded by someone whom, as (?Lieutenant?) Burkholder might have responded to Colonel Klink (in that *****great 'ole situation comedy of the 70s, Hogans Heroes), has seemingly embraced Burkholder's own lifetime motto:"I know *******noth-ink!"

*****Accepting the validity of Jewish critiques of the show claiming it tended, no doubt, to ******downplay the seriousness of what was then transpiring in the Third Reich; but childhood memories nevertheless always remain dear and cherished, and hard to replace no matter how reasonable/logical the argument may well be...

******Much as Yours Truly roundly criticized the film Jojo Rabbit for doing a little while ago.

*******I.e. nothing. (********Says it all, doesn't it.)

********As in knows nothing much about those things (in the political sphere) that really matter, that well behove a leader of such a major Western nation - with such a well-known, much-fraught history - to know.

"I Told You (I.e. Anyone/Everyone Willing to Listen) So", But You Simply Wouldn't Listen...A Golden Opportunity for 'Peace at Last' Has Been Missed/Wasted, & Will Probably Never Come Again

Like any half-decent (& semi-rational)  person, I utterly abhor Putin (the man and all he stands for), as I also, for that matter, do the likes of Trump and Xi...

But, it's sad to have to say - yet again: I told you/y'all so...

Vis-a-vis the public shaming and humiliation of Vladimir Putin by the U.S. recently, a moment where it was abundantly clear and palpable that the Western Superpower was sticking it to Russia and especially its leader - in every which way possible...

...and that, as a direct - if, naturally enough, unacknowledged - consequence the (previously unremitting and seemingly indomitable) resolve of the Russian leadership - military generals all the way up to Putin himself - which had clearly over preceding days been starting, however tentatively and hesitantly, to lessen/weaken, was once again hardened - and I believe inexorably...

So that President Putin's words very words this (NZ/Southern Hemisphere) New Year's Day (Northern Hemisphere's New Year's Eve) - that "the West was intent on destroying Russia" (to all those viewing President Zelensky's visit to America to address the United States Congress) - doesn't actually look /seem so very far-fetched after all...

But let me quickly explain myself.

This visit signified/demonstrated/shouted from the rafters at least three significant things:

*the battle in Ukraine could now be (however wrongly) depicted/portrayed (convincingly and credibly) to Putin's countrymen and women as 'the West versus Russia'

*the only acceptable result in the eyes/sights of the US Administration/political establishment was/is total humiliation for Russia and shaming of its leader

*a worrying sense of smug superiority and gloating over the enemy (i.e. Russia by the US) was once again being played out upon the world stage - in sheer/stark and wholly unambiguous terms.

TO BE CONTINUED...