For Once, Let's Hear it for a Bit of Honesty on the Global Stage, For Actually Telling it Like it is For a Change, For Effectively Wearing One's Heart Upon One's Sleeve...

Yes, it's quite unkosher, a real 'no-go' area these days - which of course is perfectly understandable in a day and age of deep-seated duplicity and double-dealing... 

Putin Deserved EVERY BIT Of President Biden's Heartfelt Remarks the Other Day - the Usual Growing Senility Observations of the Western/World's Media Notwithstanding - And Indeed MUCH, MUCH Worse...However (Which Admittedly Contradicts What I've Just Posted Upon DavidEdwinisms) Some Things One/You Simply Cannot - Or, Rather, Oughtn't - Say In Global Geo-Politics...Unless You Wish to Be 'Remembered'/To Go Down in (Admittedly, To Be Non-Existent History) As One of the Chief Causes of World War 111

"Is It Nothing To You, All Ye That Pass By? Behold, And See If There Be Any Sorrow Like Unto My Sorrow..."

Sometimes it's pretty well impossible to go beyond, to improve upon the language of the sacred writer...

Today's the Ides of March - Hey, Who'd Have Guessed?

 Ask not for whom the bell tolls, Vladimir, it tolls for you (and your ilk), Mr Putin...

Though A Lifetime/Lifelong Pacifist, How Can ANYONE Reasonably Fault Ukrainians One & All For Rising Up As One WO/MAN & Defending Themselves, Their Nation, Their Cherished Freedoms & All They Hold Dear...From the Barbarians At (& Beyond) Their Very Doors...MAY GOD ON HIGH GRANT THEM DELIVERANCE & VICTORY

Yes, It's David Versus Goliath All Over Again...But Methinks the Russkies (Or More Accurately, Putin & Minions) Have This Time Bitten Off A Little More Than They Can Reasonably Regurgitate...

Calling in the Hellhounds - Putin to Isis: Hey, They'll Respond - Look at Syria (from 2015 on)...& Don't Forget What Putin's Government Did to Grozny, Chechnya (from 1999)...& to Georgia (in 2008)

Birds of a feather (ever) flock together (or some such metaphor)...

No, that's grossly insulting to your average bird...

Infinitely more apt would doubtless be the biblical reference to the very last days of Earth's history, at/after which point of time there are corpses galore...

And the gospel writer simply adds:

...wheresoever the carcase is, there will the eagles be gathered together...

Or maybe even the vultures, for that matter...  

Vladimir Putin - Perfecting Machiavelli to a Fault: Putin Bided His Time, Patiently Awaited The Perfect Moment, Saw His Ideal Opportunity, Then - At Length - Quickly Moved In, When the Way Was Clear: When the West/U S of A Had Effectively, Uncategorically Given the All-Clear...Realizing There'd Be No Repercussions For So Doing - Following the Publicly Given Verbal Assurance to People Worldwide That, In Any Event, They Wished to Avoid Nuclear War, Having No Intention to Initiate Such - and Accordingly, Inevitably, WW111 - If Russia Invaded Ukraine (As It Was Then Looking Increasingly Likely to Do)...

But what else could - any - American  government conceivably, responsibly do? 

'Good Faith Negotiations' Between Putin & Ukraine (Or Any Sovereign Nation, For That Matter)? Yeah, Right (As A Common New Zealand Billboard Well Declares)!

Or as the Dad's Army team might have expressed matters: "[Just] who do you think you're kidding/fooling, Mr Putin?"

Forget About Nostradamus, One Person - An Ancient European, No Less (Or, Perhaps, As Some Suggest, A Composite of So Many (& Various) 'Wise (Wo)men' Throughout the World, Down the Centuries, Even Millennia) - Had Vladimir Putin 'Down Pat' (In 'Clairvoyant' Vision, As it Were): Aesop of the Timeless 'Aesop's Fables'...

Indeed, of the 40-odd fables in our (my and my four siblings') beloved edition of the same (1965 edition), thus far I have found - and made reference to 9-11 (of these) in various related blogposts - fully 20 (half) have some bearing upon the present situation...

'Wisdom Is Better Than Weapons of War; But One Sinner Destroyeth Much Good."

It goes without saying, I suppose, that Solomon clearly foresaw our day (among others).