A reader sent me a cartoon idea this morning and it wasn’t bad. Thomas, a nice guy it seems, suggested I draw a cartoon of Edward Snowden being drafted by the Russian military now that President Vladimir Putin has granted him Russian citizenship. Not bad, Thomas. Of course, I’m not going to draw Thomas’ idea because I don’t use ideas that are not my own and…I predict at least two other cartoonists will draw it. In fact, my friend Quannah commented on this cartoon on Facebook predicting Snowden will be drafted.
Thomas was thinking like a political cartoonist, seeing Putin’s desperation as he’s losing the illegal war he started in Ukraine. Putin lied to justify his war but even if Nazis were running wild in Ukraine, that wouldn’t justify bombing schools and hospitals. It also doesn’t justify the sham vote occurring in Russian-occupied territories to become a part of Russia. I’m sure after all the results come in showing they do want to leave Ukraine and join Russia, Donald Trump will call and congratulate them.
Putin is desperate and has ordered a draft he claims is only a “partial mobilization.” In a national address, he said, “We are talking about partial mobilization. In other words, only military reservists, primarily those who served in the armed forces and have specific military occupational specialties and corresponding experience, will be called up.” Unfortunately for Russians, that’s a lie. Putin is a liar.
Russians are fleeing the nation to avoid the draft. They’re crossing borders into Finland, Georgia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, and flying to Turkey.
One young man who has been drafted is fleeing Russia despite the fact his wife will give birth next week. He said, “I will miss the most important day of my life. But I am simply not letting Putin turn me into a killer in a war that I want no part in.”
One group that helps Russians leave the nation so they won’t have to fight Putin’s war estimates that over 70,000 men have used their service to leave Russia with many purchasing one-way tickets. Returning to Russia may land them in prison…or dead in Ukraine.
Russians are against this war and the “partial” mobilization. One young man shot a recruitment officer today at a military enlistment station in Russia’s Irkutsk region. He was distraught because his best friend has been drafted to fight in Putin’s war despite having zero military experience. See? Putin is a liar. The recruitment officer survived.
With so many Russians against this war against a nation they don’t hate, how can they stop it? The only way may be by removing Putin from office. That will not happen politically. Russian politicians lack the intestinal fortitude to confront Putin. They’re unwilling to speak against him let alone attempt to remove him. Putin’s critics have bad habits of tripping out of windows and accidentally drinking poison.
The only way Putin will be removed will be by a military coup. The more territory Russia loses to Ukraine, the more the military destabilizes, and the more Russian soldiers die fighting Putin’s war, the more the military will want to get rid of Putin.
Putin, like Hitler before him who also wasn’t a military genius, may find himself in a bunker.
As Soviet troops entered a destroyed Berlin in 1945, Hitler hid in his Führerbunker and eventually killed himself. I don’t see that happening with Putin but I do believe the military will remove him.
Let’s just hope that Putin is removed before he gets to the point of drafting children to protect him, which Hitler did because that’s all that was left to fight for Germany.
There are still men left to fight for Putin now, but there are not a lot of them who want to.
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claytoonz 
Let’s hope Putin is removed before he thinks using a tactical nuclear weapon in Ukraine will solve his problems.
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Putin is so careful and well-protected with layers of security, that I don’t see how he can be removed, but I hope someone finds a way. BTW, I think you meant Edward Snowden. Eric, the actor, died many years ago.
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I read there was a military coup in China, but it doesn’t seem to be getting much publicity. AND there was a school shooting in Russian? Or did I have some fever dreams?
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you got the school shootings part right: https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-shootings-school-moscow-89e5b91e252b4753556428d5ee97fe3e?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_07
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While America sinks into oblivion (according to all the doomsayers who have given up hope!) Iran and Russia are fighting for their lives, and their freedom to have a life. The world remains in balance.
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quis leget haec?
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Is this a legitimare question that requires an answer, or it it rhetorical? It sounds rhetorical to me, but I am not an expert in Latin. Je ne sais quoi!
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Just me being quirky.
It translates as ‘Who will read this?’
I’d just happened to look into the cartoonist’s site today, which I had never visited, and saw yourself there and in fit of british obliqueness sent this out.
How are you? I was trying to reply to one of your comments on one of Jill’s posts but WP was being ornery.
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Not a good place to talk about how I am, lol. Yes, I had to look up the translation of the Latin phrase, but it left me in limbo. I said 2hat I did because I wanted people to not only read it, but maybe understand that in the insanity of the world around us, other things were happening to counterbalance the shit we are going through. I hear Iran is going to attack the protestors in some cruel way, but hopefully that will cause more protesting, and in the end bring down the theocracy in charge. Human spirit is such that it can only be pushed so far, and then the people explode and fight back. The fact is that people on both sides will die, with the numbers higher on the people’s side being higher, but there are more oeople than theocracists and their armies. The odds are ultimately on the side of the people.
Would it not be ironic as places like England and America become autocracies, Russia and Iran might become the leaders of the free world? Sitting here in Canada I would have to laugh violently.
My preference, of course, would be for the autocrats, plurocrats, and theocrats etc all to be defeated, and for people to ba allowed to live peacefully in their own chosen ways, but the world is not there yet. But it will be, because that is the direction in wnich we are moving, slow as it might be right now.
Barring destroying our world, which is a real possibility, given a chance unsanity will rule, which means we will learn to be responsible for ourselves, and ourselves will include all living beings! Such is my vision, and nothing can take that vision away from us!
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Hold fast to your vision my good friend.
I dream of being proven wrong, wrong, wrong.
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My vision is the long one. Like Asimov in the Foundation series, anomalies like Trump (the Mule) are bound to happen, but they will be temporary. Given time they will become meaningless.
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True.
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Reblogged this on It Is What It Is and commented:
Sig’o the times: Russian draft!! … “Russians are fleeing the nation to avoid the draft. They’re crossing borders into Finland, Georgia, Mongolia, and Kazakhstan, and flying to Turkey.”
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