If Putin Isn’t Stupid, Most Of What We’re Told Doesn’t Make Sense

Let’s get the two minutes of hate out of the way first and say that Vladimir Putin is the most evil and bloodthirsty ruler since Vlad The Impaler. He’s an autocratic revanchist oligarch and has a homosexual relationship with Donald Trump. I’ll pause for a moment for you to add thoughts of your own.

With that out of the way, let me say his ranking on the scale of moral and kind politicians is not the issue. The question that matters is, is he stupid? I would say unequivocally from what I know of him that he is not. I’ve heard him speak extemporaneously with insight and a forthrightness few if any of our politicians could hope to come near. I know you’ve probably never permitted yourself to actually listen to him speak or read anything he has written, but I’m guessing even you would say he is not stupid. I’ll give you the opportunity once again to call him a very bad man, but please remember that is not germane to the subject at hand.

I know the admission that Putin is not stupid is hard for those dedicated to hating him. I remember how people would call the 9/11 perpetrators cowards and I could never understand why — of all the moral failings they could accuse them of — they would say that. Try hijacking a plane and flying it into a building some time and see if you have the courage to do it. I know it’s hard, but just try imagining that someone you hate might have some positive qualities.

Can you do this? Good. Then let me say I believe Putin and the Russian government are more honest and willing to play by the rules than the United States and its allies. I say this for one reason: it is more necessary for them to do so. They are forced to play as honest and above board as possible. Ethics aside, this is just the pragmatic path for them to take.

The West has no such concerns. They can bald-facedly lie about weapons of mass destruction without paying a price for it. Bush was responsible for the deaths of a million(ish) people and Ellen Degeneres later danced and joshed with him on TV. Putin wouldn’t get away with that. NATO overthrew the leader of another country who died as a result of being anal-raped with a bayonet. And then Secretary Of State Hillary Clinton said “We came, we saw, he died,” and then laughed a ghoulish laugh. This was rarely if ever discussed among the establishment media types. If this is how impalement is viewed in the West, perhaps Vlad The Impaler was not such a terrible guy after all.

I invite you to imagine what the response would be if Volodymyr Zelenskyy gets impaled by a bayonet at the end of this conflict and Serge Lavrov laughs and mocks his death. I’m guessing it would not pass without comment. But that will never happen because Serge Lavrov and the Russian government know the global media is not on their side. They know they will never be permitted an honest rebuttal on any station owned by the international conglomerates that mostly control what the world is and is not permitted to see. So as much as Putin or Lavrov or Alexander Dugin might want to stick a sharp object up Zelenskyy’s bum, it’s off the table.

Again, I’m not saying Russia is our moral superior, I’m just saying they are not in a position where they can have the most infamous prisoner in the world die in one of their jails and the entirety of the media from South Korea to Canada call it a suicide and never question it. Until Russia has a firmer control on the global media than the U.S. currently has, they’re going to have to play things a little more clean.

You don’t think Putin knows this? You don’t think he knows the media is never going to take his side or even question anonymous intelligence agents who speculate that Russia is using sonic weapons on U.S. Embassies, causing what is known as Havana Syndrome? He would have to be a colossal idiot not to.

Choose what you wish to believe now: either Putin is a devious former KGB agent knowledgeable in ways of espionage and manipulation, or else he is a cross between Boris Badenov and Wiley E. Coyote. Are you going the Wiley E. Coyote route? Then our discussion is at an end. Do you believe he’s smarter than that? Then let’s talk Ukraine.

Do you think Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was Putin’s first choice and main objective? Considering all he has lost to invade Ukraine, do you really think it was sound judgment on his part? Losing trading partners throughout Europe could not have been an easy choice. Creating an enduring enmity with a country with which Russia has had a millennium-long bond could not have been an “Oopsy, I miscalculated.” No, Putin and Russia watched as the U.S. media lost its mind over a few memes on the internet that nobody saw, uncritically repeating whatever propaganda the intelligence agencies fed them. Putin watched as year after year the greatest military alliance on Earth pushed closer and closer to his country’s borders. Watched as elected government after elected government that buffered Russia from NATO was overthrown. Watched as the same thing was attempted both in Kazakhstan and Belarus shortly before Ukrainian troops began amassing on the borders of the Russian speaking territories of Ukraine. Watched as ally Syria was flooded with terrorists and mercenaries, where even today the United States military is in control of the better parts of Syria’s farmland and oil fields. Listened as every promise and treaty made by the west, from Iran to Libya to Russia itself, was broken the moment it was useful to do so.

Step by step Russia was forced backwards and alienated as neighboring countries had U.S. educated leaders installed after Color Revolutions got rid of elected governments. It watched as the Minsk Accords were agreed to but never lived up to, as Germany’s Angela Merkel, France’s Francois Hollande, and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko have recently revealed was the plan all along. Proving beyond any reasonable doubt that there was no good faith actor with which Russia might exercise diplomacy.

Russia was not the prime mover in the events that led up to the invasion of Ukraine. Its only real opportunity to make a move not directed by the U.S. was to choose to be the first to strike. The option of peaceful negotiation was never really on the table, only the repeated option of retreat and submission. Putting aside questions of good and evil, we must ask if Putin was wise to do as he has done. I cannot answer that, I can only say putting Putin and Russia in such a position most definitely was not.