Nuketown (Glory To Ukraine V.)

Ripley: Lieutenant, what do those pulse rifles fire?
Gorman: 10 millimeter explosive-tip caseless. Standard light armor piercing round. Why?
Ripley: Well, look where your team is. They're right under the primary heat exchangers.
Gorman: So?
Ripley: So... if they fire their weapons in there, won't they rupture the cooling system?
Burke: Whoa ho-ho... yeah, she's absolutely right.
Gorman: So? So what?

Burke: Look, this whole station is basically a big fusion reactor, right? So she's talking about a thermonuclear explosion and... adios, muchachos.

Gorman: Oh, great. Wonderful. Shit! [talking via radio] Look... Uh... Apone. Look, we can't have any firing in there. I, uh... I want you to collect magazines from everybody.

Hudson: Is he fucking crazy?

Frost: What the hell are we supposed to use, man? Harsh language?

Gorman: Flame units only. I want rifles slung.

Apone: Sir, I-

Gorman: Just do it, Sergeant. And no grenades. ~From the film Aliens 

Apparently, in Ukraine, the world's largest nuclear power plant is on fire and there's a firefight going on inside it between Russian and Ukrainian soldiers.

I mean, the fuck?

Does the idea of a gun battle right smack in the middle of a giant, Soviet-era nuclear power plant sound like a bad idea to you, or is it just me?

I think I'm gonna go out on not-much-of-a-limb here and say that's a bit problematic, don't you think?

It seems to me, that since the Ukrainian Armed Forces...and indeed, the common people, refuse to give up and are, in fact, whipping his army, Putin has simply decided to be as destructive as possible. Even though a majority of the citizens of Belarus and the Russian Federation don't want this war. 

In a war that only a tiny few want, an entire country and people are now being put at risk of nuclear contamination because *Checks Notes* One man didn't like them?

That's real fucked up, I think.

You know, maybe it's just me, but I thought after WWII and the Nuremburg trials, after Bosnia, or Liberia and Sierra Leone and people like Charles Taylor and Radovan Karadzic getting locked up, hell, after Muammar Gaddafi was dragged from a drainpipe and shot by his own people, you'd think humanity would learn this sort of lesson.

Look, I hate to rain on anyone's parade here, but at the rate this is going the US and NATO are going to have to get involved, we all are going to have to, at the very least, provide air support to the Ukrainians as well as substantial amounts of humanitarian aid at this point. Honestly, I would not rule out ground troops either. 

Why? Because if this war causes one or more nuclear disasters, they absolutely will affect the rest of the world; just like Chernobyl did. Putin is trying to burn down the whole international order, here. It's not working, put he's going to keep trying until he's in the dock at The Hague or up against a wall smoking that last cigarette.

Hell, the war in Ukraine as a whole already has. This is going to end up being World War III whether we like it or not. I'm not saying the Russians are going to conquer Ukraine and then turn west and invade the Baltic states or something. 

I'm saying the chaotic spillover from actions like attacking nuclear power plants is going to hit other countries and then the rest of the world is going to have to get involved. Note: There will be those, however few, who step in on Russia's side, here.

And I'm here to tell you, this shit will only get worse. Now, I don't know how it can get worse than a goddamn firefight in the middle of a nuclear power plant...I mean, seriously, the vibe from Aliens and some other pretty dark science fiction here is quite real...but I'm sure the Russians will find a way.

I hate war, but we as a species are going to have to deal with this evil bullshit, and that usually only goes one way.

Meanwhile, American Christians and Republicans are already trying to find ways to use this crisis for nothing more than their own partisan political benefit and to try and look righteous.

And no, I'm not surprised, just utterly disgusted.

At this point, if you're not willing to do something, you're wasting your time.

Again, if it was us instead of Ukraine, or us and Ukraine that Russia had invaded,, would we be doing as well as the Ukrainians are? Not if Marsha Blackburn could help it.

Praying for peace won't do any good here, we're going to have to step up and fight to reestablish that peace and the small-L, small-D liberal democratic order that it made possible.

We're. Going. To. Have. To. Fight.

And I suspect it won't be long before it comes to that, and we're all going to have to make some choices.

And make the right ones.

Otherwise, people like Putin will keep doing what they do, and this NukeTown bullshit and people sleeping on the cold, cold ground in the middle of winter, and the power of autocrats and the corporations that profit from fascism...otherwise that becomes our future. A world where leaders are chosen by the mob and removed by assassination, if at all. Where one guy sitting at the end of a ridiculously long table is somehow supposed to look "strong" rather than afraid, isolated, and lonely.

And that is the future that Autocrats and "Conservatives" want.

Don't let them have it.

Update: Ukraine says the plant is secure.

Part IV

Слава Україна!