Ted Rall for March 18, 2022

I suppose it would be better to just send in an invisible drone to take down the insane person. Right?

The floor is open for suggestions, Ted!

Got any?

Man Rall you just kvetch to kvetch don’t you? So tell us, how do you suggest the world react to Putin invading a free country, killing innocent folks?

So, you’d prefer Russia to be able to continue to fund the invasion of Ukraine indefinitely?

In the meantime Putin is casting missile strikes at buildings sheltering children.

I hear the Russian Instagram influencers are beside themselves with grief. It’s almost as bad as hunkering down in a bomb shelter, counting off how many family members you’ll have to go out & bury after the ground stops shaking.

Seriously, how bad will this be for average Russians? Imported luxury goods will be in short supply, but they export food, oil & gas. They won’t starve or freeze to death. You know who will be facing starvation? A lot of Africans who rely on Ukraine’s food exports, unless the min-Tsar can be convinced to stop the slaughter.

I guess this is the kind of silliness you focus on when you’ve convinced yourself there can only be one Imperialism.

Such economic stress was part of the Russian Revolution.

So, “Don’t just do something — stand there!”? I doubt there is still the peasant serf mentality among Russians that allowed the Bolsheviks, Communists, and Putin-era Oligarchs to ravage Russia. If we can tear aside the Digital Curtain, Russians at least in the cities may see the world as it is and topple the present Stalin wannabe.

Otherwise, if Putin continues his rampage, threatening the world with nuclear conflict to get his way, China and North Korea are eventually bound to follow suit in their areas of the world. Liberation is not what is happening — it’s domination.

Sometimes the funnyhouse-mirror method of editorial cartooning is not appropriate. Take a trip to Ukraine, if you still think so. Help in the makeshift hospitals, and in the graveyards burying women and children. Rescue old people cowering in the bombed-out ruins of their apartments. Travel the trains taking Ukrainians to safety. Live a while in the underground huddles of families.

D—n it!

How many of Darrin Bell’s universes does it take to get to RallWorld?

It’s a M.A.D.,M.A.D.,M.A.D.,M.A.D.,world.

This is the horrible side of a sanctions war. The ones that get hit the most, are the noncombatants. But, many of these noncombatants put Putin into power, so, are they really innocent? But, somehow, I still feel for the average person in Russia who can’t afford their bread for the inflation.

Madison Cawthorn called the president of Ukraine a thug. I thought Madison loves thugs.

Ted would be appalled…but we’ve learned why Tramp was so cozened by Putridin.

So Ted, what is your infinite wisdom on what should be done? Inquiring minds want to know

Ted, we’ve been doing much worse to CUBA for over 60 years… For no reason, except for the CubanAmericanNaziFanatics: the fascists, murderers, batista-clones in Miami!

Mr. Rall what heck are you saying here what is your "message’? I may not be the sharpest tool in the shed at times but I feel I’m pretty good at figuring things out. It seems like this toon is just you venting your frustrations at the current condition of the world, something human kind has been doing since we first learned how to bitch and moan.

just read an article on Kolomoisky, Zelensky’s benefactor who reportedly gave him some 40 million dollars …seems like a character right out of a bond movie. in his office apparently “he has a massive shark tank. During business meetings, the 51-year-old enjoys pressing the button on his desk that releases live shrimp into the water, and then watching his visitors’ reactions to the feeding frenzy.”

What’s Ted’s advice about what we should do with the Ukraine situation? Sit back and watch?

It is up to the Russian people to choose and manage their government, and enjoy or suffer for the acts of their government. No one else is to blame for Putin. No one else is to blame for actions taken against Russian behavior.

Ummm…what exactly do you suggest, @Ted Rall? Putin has positioned himself behind a very Hitleresque lie to invade Ukraine (I mean, “deNazify” a country with a Jewish president? Huh?), because he wants their resources, their access to the Black Sea, and ultimately to re-establish a Russian Empire. It is a country run by corrupt megarich oligarchs (not unlike our own, I suppose), the chief of whom does not hesitate to jail or assassinate journalists who merely criticize him, and imprison and torture protesters. According to a press release they had ready and accidentally did not quash, the Russians (or at least Putin) thought they could crush Ukraine within 24 hours and put their own message out after a fait accompli, again a la Hitler in Czechoslovakia.

Mind telling me just what “diplomacy” do you think will work with someone like this? What levers do we have to pull? Our main ones are economic and military. You certainly can’t discuss things in a spirit of goodwill. Putin has no motive to do so. This is what he wants, and he is willing to bomb hospitals to get it.

Rather than rolling tanks and risking nuclear war in a direct confrontation, Biden chose to use alliances and economic sanctions — collective security, as they used to call it, when the League of Nations failed to do it, but he has been pulling it off, in part because Putin has apparently failed to realize that the modern capitalist dictatorship of Russia has economic interdependencies the old USSR did not. The rich guys running things are losing their money, and even they are beginning to speak out against the war – and if anyone can remove Putin from office (one way or another), it’s the rich people who help keep him there.

Having just read the very good book Appeasement by Tim Bouverie, the contrast is striking; whatever else I think of Biden (and believe me, I have many criticisms), he clearly knows his history and foreign affairs, and is not making the same mistakes Chamberlain did.

Why is Ted Rall generally such a lame loser?

Strangely, Mr. Rall is not responding to calls for him to tell us what Biden SHOULD have done. Is it because he has nothing to offer other than bitter nonsense? The punishment of almost any criminal may be expected to cause pain to innocent family members. Dose Mr. Rall wish to abolish the criminal justice system to protect the innocent? The Ukrainians are causing great pain to the mothers of Russian soldiers. Does he criticize Ukrainian soldiers for shooting back? Just where are you coming from Mr. Rall?

OK, Mr. Rall. Please send your brilliant plan to get Russia out of Ukraine to the White House. I’m sure they will be grateful and you’d be doing the world a favor as well.

No, those in govt would like to see an overthrow of Putin and his cronies.

Can’t wait to see Ted’s reaction if/when Putin threatens to unleash biological and/or nuclear weapons upon Ukraine.

Yes, and it’s for their own good, Ted.

What’s the alternative?

OK, Ted, how about this?

The words “welcome to hell” have a particular resonance in the long-troubled lands around the Black and Caspian seas. The story goes that, a quarter-century ago, a lumbering, poorly trained battalion of Russian conscripts managed to capture the train station in Grozny, an ancient fortress city in the Chechen Republic. No sooner had they gained their prize on New Year’s Eve 1994 than a voice was heard on their radios. “Welcome to hell!” it announced, and rebels hidden in the upper floors of nearby buildings rained grenades, machine-gun fire and sniper bullets onto the trapped column.

In 1999, on orders of Vladimir Putin, then Russia’s prime minister, a new assault on Grozny began — and this time, the Russians brought hell with them. Humane individuals worldwide might wonder what atrocities Putin is capable of in his indiscriminate violence against Ukraine. The people of Grozny can provide the answer.

The assault began with aerial bombing and shelling of homes, schools and hospitals. The Russians then escalated to the use of thermobaric explosives, also known as vacuum bombs. These are two-stage explosives that spray fuel oil with the first blast, which is then ignited in a second blast capable of bursting through fortifications and vaporizing human beings.

If Putin kills Zelensky and commits regicide is it OK to kill Putin?

I would argue that the Biden administration is out to destroy both countries. It refused to consider Russia’s call — renewed since the war started — for a grand European settlement in which Ukraine would be neutral. It’s prolonging the war by feeding Ukraine more and more weapons — and by failing to make it absolutely clear to Ukraine’s govrernment that NATO will not go to war with Russia. Instead of working toward a diplomatic solution, the US is doing its best to promote a permanent rupture with Russia. Between Russia and the United States, the Ukrainian people are being ground exceedingly small — with considerable help from their own vastly irresponsible government, of course.

Mr. Rall,I subscribe to and look through on-line Guardian, NYT, and WP each morning, and at least browse through Atlantic and Harper’s magazine print editions and more newspapers and magazines available through Apple News addition. But I have consistently missed the information you share in the comments here, replying to others, about the reality of Nazi influence in Ukraine. I’m ashamed to say that, in my dotage, I am susceptible to the “party line“ provided by popular media of the sort I have mentioned. Can you here direct me and others to other media so that we might more often encounter the information we are missing? I am horrified my the new glorification of war, even in cases of what can seem legitimate defense, and would like to be better informed. Thanks for your work and thanks for listening.

Ukrainian military using drones to attack Russians in their sleep. A group of expert Ukrainian drone pilots called the Aerorozvidka are reportedly helping slow down advancing Russian troops by striking when the invading forces sleep — a show of force that demonstrates the power of using drones in 21st century warfare.According to a new report in the UK outlet The Week, the group’s strategy has impressed Western military officials by using the relatively inexpensive and effective devices, Turkish-made TB2 unmanned aerial vehicles, to carry out air strikes on tanks, supply trucks and other targets.“Russian forces are static when night falls,” a member of the group told the Times, another UK publication. “Their fear of Ukrainian shelling [is] forcing them to hide their tanks in villages between houses, knowing that conventional artillery cannot risk hitting civilians.”

Uh oh. We all know how much Ted hates drones. Will he now tell us how evil the Ukrainians are defending themselves from Russian tanks with drones in the night?

Nobody lives in a perfect world, except you Rall.

Sanctions are better than nukes.