Il Duce of the Kremlin

image from Wikipedia

Several times I’ve referred on line to Vladimir Putin as this century’s Adolf Hitler. I suspect his twentieth century hero is Joseph Stalin. But viewed objectively, Putin comes off more like Benito Mussolini. All the strutting and bombast is more comic opera than world changer. And in the end his people suffer unnecessary lose.

Putin’s vision of paradise is so flawed that he and his former KGB cronies are probably the only ones looking back on the failed Soviet Union with nostalgia.

War of Words

“History teaches, perhaps, very few clear lessons. But surely one such lesson learned by the world at great cost is that aggression, unopposed, becomes a contagious disease,” said Jimmy Carter in 1980, responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. A Washington Post headline reads, “Forget Reagan–we’re starting to miss Carter.”

“President Obama and European leaders are ratcheting up their rhetoric against Russia. Too bad Vladimir Putin is a man of action who hasn’t seen anything worth stopping his assault on Ukraine,” opined the Wall Street Journal.

Will Rogers said one way to prevent war was to ban peace conferences, because we use them to substitute words for action. We’re certainly trying to talk Russia to sleep. (That, and cancelling a few visas.)

All our talk may have the Russians oligarchs “concerned” but not Vlad the Imperialist.