Mad Dog

 

The Moskova, flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.  Oh wait, where did it go? It was there yesterday.

We all know now that Vladimir Putin is in the middle of committing one of the most ill-planned atrocities in the history of modern warfare.  What we all thought, a month or so ago, was going to be a walk in the park has turned out to be a slog through the Great Grimpen Mire, with the Hound of the Baskervilles nipping at Vlad's heels.  And now this exercise in incompetence and futility has reached a new low, with the destruction of the Moskova, the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, by homemade missiles manufactured in Ukraine, a country reckoned incapable of standing up to Putin's onslaught for four days.

At this point, not only have Russian troops proven virtually incapable of anything except perpetrating atrocities on the civilian population of Ukraine, a country with a population only a little more than a quarter of Russia's, but we have to wonder if any of its Naval vessels is safe from destruction.

So, as the Russian military is revealed more and more to be a hopeless sham, I want to ask this question: At what point does a criminal aggression against another country's civilian population, once stripped of any hope of success, become not the act of a world leader, but just that of a large scale serial killer, intent on a rampage that has far more in common with the career of Edmund Emil Kemper, or the BTK killer?  At what point does the world declare that Putin is no longer a legitimate world leader, but nothing but a subhuman mad dog, to be put down in the street at the earliest opportunity?  At what point is it made clear that even his countrymen have an obligation to eliminate him?

I know that the nations of the world almost never resort to such decisions for fear that their own leaders will fall prey to them, justified or not, but it seems to me that it might be the best thing if Vladimir Putin could be declared a mutual enemy of the world, with every capable force committed to his personal destruction.  A world without him would very likely be a better place for everyone, the Russian people included.