Well. It’s been…an eventful couple of weeks since our last posting.
Those of you who thought invasions for reasons of national aggrandizement were a thing of the past have had something of a rude awakening. And, Greymantle hates to say it, but “I told you so!” in my blog posting of December 30. All the signs were there. One had only to study the military formations on the ground and know the mind of the man.
The Man.
That’s the role he has filled for a generation of Russians who were battered by hyperinflation and economic collapse in the 1990s. The ender of the second “Time of Troubles“. The great stabilizer of Mother Russia. None other than Czar Vladimir the First. Vladimir Putin, that is.
As Blue Oyster Cult lead singer Donald “Buck Dharma” Roeser once sang, “I’m livin’ for giving the Devil his due“. And today, Greymantle will follow in the footsteps of the hallowed “Buck Dharma” and, likewise, give the Devil – in this case, Mr. Putin – his very well-earned due.
Though it was doubtless not his intention to bring about the series of events listed below, it would be remiss of us not to offer Mr. Putin our thanks for a fair number of recent developments – and by recent, I mean the past two weeks – for which Greymantle and his like-minded compadres will (with any luck) be eternally grateful.
To Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Republic :
Thank you for reinvigorating the Western Alliance. NATO has been a largely moribund body since the early 2010s. It’s members have re-discovered a shared sense of purpose. Well done!
Thank you for breaking America and Europe out of their COVID funk. We were feeling pretty depressed there for while. You’ve given us other stuff to think about for a change. Bravo, “my beauty”!
Thank you for giving US intelligence agencies a chance to re-establish their credibility following the failures of the 2003 Iraq War and the more recent debacle in Afghanistan. People are gonna think twice before they say that the US intelligence community is a contradiction in terms!
Everyone except for J.D. Vance, that is. Gosh…he is SOOO smart!
Thank you for bringing America and France together after the bad feelings caused by that submarine business last summer with Australia. Joe Biden and Emmanuelle Macron are now best buds. Who’da thunk it?
Thank you for giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky a chance to show cowardly U.S. and European political leaders what a profile in courage looks like. Now, maybe more Republicans will grow a fucking spine and stand up to Donald Trump and the MAGA Gang. Jolly good show!
Thank you for finally giving the Germans a good excuse to completely re-arm since the end of the Cold War. Multiple U.S. presidents have been trying to get the Germans to do this for 20 years. And you did it in one week! You are the greatest political genius EVER. It must be because you speak fluent German. The Germans know you have their best interests at heart.
Thank you for motivating German Chancellor Olaf Scholz to cancel the Nordstream 2 pipeline and initiate the greatest shift in German energy policy in 30 years. Honestly, Greymantle never thought this would happen. You are truly a miracle-worker, sir!
Thank you for inspiring the German Social Democratic Party to abandon its 50-year policy of “Ostpolitik” toward Russia and other former Soviet states. I know that I must sound like a broken record, but the policy shifts that you have engineered in Western democracies are nothing short of remarkable. You are going in the history books for that one!
Thank you for prompting Sweden and Finland to reconsider their whole “neutral status” thing and openly consider joining NATO. Thanks for shifting the attitudes of their citizens in that direction. Bravo!
Thank you for bringing the Greeks and the Turks together as brothers. I understand both nations are providing military support to Ukraine. Whoever thought the Greeks and Turks would be on the same side of ANY conflict, their NATO membership notwithstanding? I see a Nobel Prize in your future, Mr. Putin…or is that an indictment by the International Criminal Court? I get confused sometimes.
Thank you for bringing Hungarian Prime Minster Viktor Orban around to the side of democracy and the European Union! Peace and brotherhood, Vlad, peace and brotherhood. You are a mender of bridges, my friend.
Maybe Brazilian President Bolsonaro will have a similar conversion. He is very much in the conversion business, you know.
Thank you for awakening the humanity of those stolid Azerbaijanis! After you forced them to sign that defense agreement with you last year, we thought they were totally on your side. But now, sending humanitarian relief to their Ukrainian brothers – I mean, who knew? I guess you just have a talent for mending the hardest of hearts!
Thank you for giving Trump the Chump a fine opportunity to prove what an idiot and a traitor he truly is! All that praise of you and your invasion last week. “It was genius. Vladimir Putin is very, very smart. I know him very, very well.” I mean…come on! How well do you two know each other exactly? And when did you first meet? Back in the 1990s? Hmm, that would be some story for an investigative reporter to write!
Thank you for giving Republican elected officials a reason to distance themselves from Donald Trump! We in America have been working really hard on that problem, and praying there is some way to pry the U.S. Republicans out of Trump’s grip. And, just like with the German defense budget, along you came, Putin, and made our old problems go away!
Thank you for giving the U.S. oil companies a reason to divest their Russian holdings and give President Biden a break! They basically fund the Republican Party, you know. Now, their interests and Biden’s are basically aligned, though they would never actually say so.
Thank you for providing a distraction from Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent PR problems with clearing the “Trucker’s Convoy”. Lots of people were calling him a fascist. Him! Dear little Justin, that Caspar Milquetoast! Now, everybody just wants to move on. Genius!
Thank you for taking all the fun out of the American trucker convoy events. That was gonna be a big deal for the Right. Now, how do you say it? The truckers are basically “out of gas”.
Thank you for making Tucker Carlson look like Public Enemy No. 1 with his rants in support of you! Those rants are going to look JUST AWEFUL the more images were see here in America of bloodied, dead little kids in the Ukrainian cities. Tucker’s publicist couldn’t do any better!
Thank you for giving French President Macron a fighting chance in this year’s French presidential election! We thought for sure that Marine Le Pen and her National Rally party allies were gonna win. Now…meh.
Thank you for putting the fight back into U.S. Democrats and their assorted liberal and progressive allies! They were getting all, you know, “blue” about the 2022 midterms and practically accepting defeat. Now, they are gonna fight the elections with guts and spirit. Hey, are you sure that you aren’t really David Axelrod moonlighting in the Kremlin?
Thank you for putting in Turkish President Erdogan’s mind the idea of using covert means to stir up more unrest in Kazakhstan and the other ethnic Turkish Central Asian states while your mind is distracted with Ukraine and keeping a close eye on the oligarchs! I am sure all of that will bear some pretty interesting fruit in 1-2 years’ time.
Pretty. Interesting.
Thank you for helping Americans forget about the Afghanistan debacle last summer! You’ve given us MUCH bigger things to worry about now. Nuclear saber-rattling? I mean, Afgha-where?
Thank you for giving Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Euratom fresh impetus to develop cold fusion reactors that actually work, so that the Western world can wean itself off of Russian oil and gas! Again, I have to say it, you are a guy who can make the impossible happen.
Thank you for giving all the Americans of Polish, Czech, Slovak, Latvian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Hungarian and Ukrainian descent scattered across the U.S. midwestern states a good reason to vote against Republican candidates and against Donald Trump in the 2022 and 2024 elections! This is perhaps your most brilliant move yet.
You always had big plans to mess with U.S. elections. Now, you have topped your performance in 2016. Incredible!
From the bottom of our hearts, Vladimir, we thank you.
Peace and love, Mr. Putin. Peace and love.
Now, if we can all take a deep breath and start de-escalating, perhaps both we and you can avoid further brilliant (gulp!) moves. I hope so.
All the best,
Greymantle
