This Ukrainian-Russian War Has My Attention

My inner siren is going womp-womp double time. Why?

I’ve been wondering why this Ukrainian-Russian war was making me anxious. I typically don’t follow wars because they are terrible and there is nothing I can do except to worry too much.

I didn’t follow the Iraq war largely because I felt that we were being lied to when the Bush administration gave various reasons for attacking Iraq. Weapons of mass destruction was the one reason that brought Americans onboard with the invasion scheme … and today no WMD has been found. That was a lie.

I didn’t follow the Afghanistan war although that war was fine because the purpose was to find the perpetuator of 9/11 – find Osama Bin Laden. I’m not sure why we were still fighting in Afghanistan after we got Osama Bin Laden. Maybe it has to do with the Taliban and wanting to help Afghanistan keep the Taliban out of the country. Anyway, I did not follow that war.

The Syrian war was extremely hard to follow due to the brutal nature of that war. My heart ached for the people trying to claim freedom from their leader, but we were hamstrung. After the false Iraq war, we were in no position to be righteous and we could make a bad situation worse. During this Syrian war, ISIS seems to have come fully into being and… I suspect they were birthed out of the Iraq war.

The Yemen war was hardly on my radar, and I don’t really know what precipitated this war and who are the players in this war. I think Saudi Arabia is part of this war but why? Anyway, since the Syrian war and ISIS was also going on at the same time, I just did not want to read about another trouble spot; there were too many troubles brewing around the world after the Great Recession.

I didn’t worry too much about all of those other wars, but this Ukrainian-Russian battle has me anxious. Why? What is different about this one?

The only thing I can think of, and this was before the news started talking about this, was there was some element of racism or prejudice. I did not, and still don’t, want to admit this because it is an ugly thing. Unfortunately, I did have to face that may be part of why I’m more worried about this crisis than I was about the others. I’m not proud.

However, as time went on and I read more news about the Ukrainian-Russian crisis, I read about the history of the Chechnya war, the Grozny war, the Crimea invasion, the Eastern Ukrainian dust-up, and I did not pay attention to any of those battles when they were occurring. I read the headlines and maybe an article or two and that’s about it.

So, something else is driving me in this current war. Prejudice is probably still part of the reason but not the sole reason.

The only thing I can think of is that this war has a real possibility of expanding into a nuclear war and NO one wins in this situation. This war would basically be an annihilation type of war. I’m surprised I haven’t heard those folks who manage the “doomsday clock” say we are 1 second from total disaster. The latest setting is at 100 seconds (1 minute and 40 seconds). I just checked the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” site and it’s still set to 100 seconds.

Okay – I remember back in January 2020, when news about a new contagious virus in China started circulating, I became a little (a LOT?) apprehensive. I was wondering “why was this virus so concerning” when other viruses throughout the years did not make me feel neurotic. I couldn’t figure out what was different except that I had to prepare for a long siege. I stocked up on supplies and made arrangement to do things remotely in case we had to be in lockdown. I felt kind of nutty making those preparations.

It turned out my subconscious was right: the virus ended up being a pandemic that is still ongoing today despite everybody opening up everything and discarding masks. (China is facing a surge of Omicron variant B and is ready to go into lockdown, if they have not already done so.)

My inner siren is doing the womp-womp, and I sure hope my subconscious is wrong.