Christopher Hitchens warns about Vladimir Putin (2005)

Hitchens was brilliant. Very unfortunate that he passed away.

I wonder how he would take current events of today. He was a democratic socialist yet quite unlike Bernie Sanders. libertarian is oh so many ways.

he was pro-iraq and afghan war. Anti israel. Pro-life, anti-death penalty, pro-gun, end prohibition on all drugs, definite trans rights = human rights.

By todays standards he's a mix of left and right wing; yet if you listen to him he's very intelligent and eloquent.

Makes me wonder what he would think of characters like Trump and what he thinks we should do for Ukraine.

I totally forgot about the peace dividend. In a way humanity was hoping the economic sanctions against Russia would work. Obviously they didnt.

If the sanctions did work and russia, a nuclear G7 economy, was forced to end the war. It would make it clear to humanity that we are post-war. Anyone else waging war or even considering invading a neighbour would have to consider similar sanctions.

Unfortunately countries like India and China continued trade with Russia and enabled war to continue.

Unfortunately that means the only thing properly preventing war are nuclear bombs. Russia breaking their treaty of non-aggression with ukraine that was established by giving their nukes to Russia just told the world that was a bad decision. It just told the world that sanctions arent enough, that humanity will still live with the reality of war. That keeping nukes in reserve is the only way

What a disaster.