The World Cup has started.  Before it started, there has been controversies regarding Qatar hosting the competition.  Western media have accused Qatar of bribing to be the host.  This, of course, has been debated over 12 years.  But add human rights issues, including the bad treatment of foreign workers, and you have critics and defenders of the country going at each other.  The head of FIFA said that given Western countries' human rights record in the past, they have no right to complain about others.  He was then being criticized for "what aboutism".  In other words, defending someone by accusing others of doing the same in the past.  So here is my take.

Regarding bribes, I think it is pretty well-known that money and favors are exchanged in deciding the host of every major sporting event.  Salt Lake City was accused of that in securing the Winter Olympics.  Even if no money directly changed hands, there are always direct or indirect favors secured for the votes.  Members of the committee to decide the host are wined and dined at every candidate city.  They are all rich people with perhaps business deals in the backburner.  Qatar, I am sure bribed.  But the whole system was installed by Western powers with most of the powerful positions controlled by Western countries.  So the Western media should attack those people and countries, not candidate cities who are only playing the game the way it was set up.

Qatar was not the only host country in a major sports events who was accused of human rights abuses.  But it is the only country I think of that is actually created by Western powers, especially the UK.  It was an UK "protectorate" until 1971 when it was given independence.  Basically, the British and Americans chose a monarch that was on their side and promised free flow of oil.  The UK set up the government for Qatar.  The Western powers all know that this government is not democratic nor would it uphold human rights.  But they did not care.  Even today, they get more angry with the decrease production of oil from OPEC than their human rights abuse.  It is like the police letting the mafia run the city and is benefitting from that arrangement and yet pretend to be shocked that the mafia is extorting money!  This is not about "what aboutism", but about hypocrisy.

 Almost all midterm election results are in.  I think by now everybody knows that the Democrats are retaining the Senate while the Republicans are likely to win the House with a slim majority.  The results are much better than the Democrats expected.  So here are some winners and losers from Tuesday.

The biggest loser is Trump.  His endorsed candidates, most of them deniers of the 2020 election results, lost in most cases in competitive states.  These candidates, most of them incompetent, may have been the reason that the GOP lost the Senate again and did much worse than expected in the House.  This shows again the Trump is bad for the Republicans.  But that was obvious even in 2020 and many still followed him.  Will this finally convince the GOP to get rid of Trump?

The big winner was Ron DeSantis who is also one of the reason that Trump is a big loser.  DeSantis did not pledge allegiance to Trump and won big.  His victory margin was impressive and may make him the front runner for the GOP in 2024.

Mitch McConnell is a loser.  Even though not his fault, by not winning the Senate, many in the Republican party want to oust him as minority leader.  I don't like McConnell but he has done a great job serving GOP interests in the Senate and it would be a mistake for them to oust him.

Kevin McCarthy was a winner and a loser.  He most likely will become Speaker.  But he will not have the majority he needs to push his agenda through without the Tea party extremists.  So his hands are tied and he may have to seek compromise with the Democrats to pass relatively moderate agenda.  But if he compromises with the Democrats, he will likely to have his leadership position challenged by the extremists in his party.  He may even lose his leadership position.  But given McConnell and McCarthy are both spineless, I don't feel sorry for either one.

One who did not lose but may lose influence is Joe Manchin.  If Warnock beats Walker in the runoff, the Democrats will have an extra vote in the Senate and may not need to kowtow to Manchin in many issues.  He may lose his position as the most powerful man in the Senate.

A possible winner is our democracy.  By defeating most election result deniers and not having much controversies in this election, hopefully our democracy is more stable than any time since Trump was elected in 2016.

 Rishi Sunak is the new prime minister of the UK.  The first person of color tapped for this job, it is an important milestone.  There are also celebrations in India as Sunak is of Indian descent.  But as in the case of Kamala Harris, Sunak is brown on the outside and white on the inside.  Even more than Harris because he is one of the richest person in the UK and is the leader of the Conservative party.  So his policies are likely pro corporations and the wealthy.   He was the equivalent of the Secretary of Treasury under Boris Johnson and so it is unlikely that his policies will be much different those of Johnson and Truss.  Those policies have not been working so I doubt that Sunak will be able to get the UK out of the financial crisis any time soon.

I understand that the parliamentary system means that the leader of the party with the most members of parliament becomes prime minister.  But there has not been any election since Boris Johnson led his party to victory.  So basically Truss and Sunak are not elected by the majority of the people but by just members of the Conservative party.  This is democracy?

Trevor Noah showed someone calling in a show in England who said that as a white country it makes no sense that an Indian guy becomes the leader.  He said it would be like him going to Pakistan or Saudi Arabia and become their leader.  Hmm!  I think that has been done before.  But the white guys in those situations used guns and bombs to gain power.  Sunak won by voting, even if it is just by the members of the Conservative party which are mostly white.

 Trump recently made racist remarks about Elaine Chao, his former Transportation secretary.  Chao is married to Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell.  When asked about Trump's racist remarks, McConnell had no comment.  Is he so spineless that he cannot defend his wife against racism?  Interestingly, Chao also had no comment.  Is she so hateful of her Chinese ancestry that she did not think the comments were racist?  Or is she keeping quiet because she is being accused of helping her family's business while in office?  So maybe these two terrible people deserve each other!

 Just returned from a trip to Detroit.  It was a good trip for my nephew's wedding and seeing my family.  The return back to LA area was not pleasant, however.  The flight out of Detroit was supposed to be 9:45 p.m.  At around 7:30 there was an announcement that the pilot was not going to make it on time and the flight had been pushed back to 10:30.  Around 8, the gate agent brought a cart full of snacks and drinks for us.  I told my wife that it is never a good sign when they are offering snacks at the gate.  Sure enough, it was followed by announcement that the pilot had just been cleared to take off from New York.  The flight will be delayed until 11:30.  I didn't have a good feeling about that since it is not known how long the pilot had been stranded in New York and if he is in shape to fly to LA when his plane lands in Detroit.  Sure enough, just around 10:45 it was announced that the pilot does not feel he is in shape to fly to LA when he lands in Detroit.  So the flight was canceled and rescheduled to 7 a.m. next morning.

We had then stand in line to get vouchers for hotel and food.  We were among the first in line but still took 15 minutes to get the vouchers.  We then had to make reservation for the hotel and find the shuttle to that hotel.  Since the hotel did not anticipate a sudden surge in business, it had to get the shuttle out to the airport and that took about 20 minutes.  When we got to the hotel, there was one clerk who had to work the system of vouchers.  It took another 20 minutes to get our room.  So it was well past midnight when we got to bed.  We had to get up at 4:30 to catch the plane.  Thankfully we made it and the plane took off as scheduled.

When we got to LAX, we had to get an Uber or Lyft.  We were jammed into a bus to take us from the arrival area to the rideshare parking lot.  The bus was jammed with people.  The drive to the parking lot took 20 minutes even though the lot is less than a mile from LAX!  The parking lot was jammed with buses.  People were wandering off the bus to find where Uber, Lyft and taxis were located.  Massive amount of people from buses with luggage.  We looked like bunch of refugees.  Once getting in our ride, it was an hour and half through LA traffic to get home.  

So for someone who hates to travel, it was not a fun experience.  I am sure a lot of people had experienced much worse than this.  But that is my point.  The airlines had no back up plans.  The airports are horrible, although DTW is a lot better than LAX.  Traffic everywhere and no good public transportation.  LAX has been under renovation for years and I doubt it will improve much after renovation is completed.  And it will still have no train going in and out of the airport then!

I also want to rant about the gas prices here in California.  It is again over $6.  The official word is that Saudi Arabia raised the price of oil to the U.S. and that there are several refineries in California  undergoing maintenance and are offline.  Well, the refineries were being maintained a few months ago when the price surged.  Do we have such ancient refineries that we have to maintain them every few months?  The price of gas jumped almost a dollar in the one week I left LA.  The price of a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia went up 20 cents.  Since a barrel of oil can produce about 20 gallons of gasoline, that means each gallon should only go up a penny!  Someone need to explain the math to me here!

 Just returned from a vacation to visit my 7 months old grandson.  It was a lot of fun to see and play with him.  But back to reality.  I just saw this article in CNN where the life expectancy of the U.S. has declined by more than two and a half years since the pandemic started.   To put into perspective, a change of a few tenths in a year is very unusual.  The current life expectancy of Americans stand at 76 years, the lowest since 1996.

Half of the decline is due to COVID.  The second largest cause of the decline in drugs.  The sad thing is that both of these causes could have been mitigated.  They are both unforce errors by us and the leaders of our government.  While American Indians had the worst decline among all ethnic groups, no group is spared.  Whites, for example, had the least decline in 2020 but had the second highest decline in 2021, worse than Blacks and Hispanics.  I think this is because Whites had the best health care and got in line first for the vaccines so they did better in the beginning.  But in the past year, Whites are among the worst of the anti-vaxxers.  They are also the most likely to call for freedom of not wearing masks in crowded public places and opening up of everything.  Advantages forfeited.

I have always said that the first freedom, in my opinion, is the freedom to be alive.  No freedom if you are six feet under.  Asian Americans did the best among the ethnic groups in these past two years.  I think many Asian Americans came from countries where individual freedom is not as important as the well being of the whole society.  I think if you live in Idaho or Wyoming, it may not make much difference what you do.  But if you live in crowded places like LA or NY, I think there is a responsibility to make it safer for each other.  I won't waste my breath here ranting about the ineptitude of our government in the pandemic, opioid crisis and mass gun shootings.  Too many unforced errors to talk about!

 The FBI raided Trump's Mar-A-Lago estate.  Supposedly, there were documents that Trump took from the White House that should not be taken out.  I don't know if they can find any of these since Trump would have had plenty of warning that the Justice department was looking for these things and he could have disposed of them before the raid.  Maybe down the toilet?  But in any case, the justice department felt it was important enough to get warrant for the raid and they did carry it out.

Of course, Trump and the GOP are up at arms over the raid.  Saying this is all political and the Justice department and the FBI are doing the work of the Democrats.  But the judge who signed the warrant was appointed by Trump.  The director of the FBI was also appointed by Trump.  So it is absurd to say this is just the work of Trump's enemy.  Of course this argument doesn't prevent the GOP from calling for defunding the FBI!  Who is against law enforcement now/

During a deposition, Trump answered only one question:  his name.  He pleaded the Fifth to every other question.  What was that he said about those who plead the Fifth?  Oh right, must be guilty otherwise why would one has to plead the Fifth?

 Now that Nancy Pelosi has left Taiwan, here is some of my takes on the subject.

I still don't know why she decided to go after being warned by the military and Biden that this was a very bad idea.  You don't become a leader in the U.S. government without being pragmatic.  Certainly human rights issue is not consider a pragmatic part of our foreign policy.  Witness Biden kowtowing to the Saudis.  Even if she is really concerned about human rights, going to Taiwan is not going to help the democracy of the Taiwanese people.

Some people say that she is going to distract the problems of her husband and that they have investments in semiconductors which is dominated by Taiwan's TSMC.  I don't think her trip is helping in regarding to both.  Certainly if it provokes China, the semiconductor business throughout the world will be affected.  Prices may go up initially but if war breaks out TSMC will be destroyed and the whole industry will be decimated, as will all of tech sectors because the reliance on chips in the world.

I do think that like all politicians in the U.S., she is beholden to the military industrial complex.  Just tension from the possibility of war is enough to help the industry earn more profit.  So there is call in both sides of the aisle to support Taiwan like Ukraine.  No regard for the fact that by pushing Putin into war, Ukraine will be destroyed even if the war is a stalemate.  Same thing will happen to Taiwan.  No American troops will go into Taiwan if war breaks out.  Taiwanese and Chinese people will die.  But that is not the concern of American hawks and their industry benefactors.

Propaganda is already all over Western media.  CNN had a retired admiral who said that 70% of Taiwanese want independence.  True fact is that only 10% want independence now.  Overwhelming majority want the status quo.  I can guaranteed practically nobody in Taiwan want to fight a war to gain independence.  Certainly not those who are eligible to be drafted into the military.

Also propaganda is that Pelosi can go anywhere she wants.  Taiwan is a separate country.  Newt Gringrich went to Taiwan as Speaker 25 years ago.  But Taiwan is not a separate country.  This fact is recognized by 180 countries, including the U.S.  It would be like the third ranking Chinese leader go to Texas and meet with the people who want to secede from the U.S.  Newt was member of the opposing party to then President Clinton.  So his visit is not considered an official position of the U.S. government.  Coming after the Biden gaffe that the U.S. will protect Taiwan from attack, you can see that this visit is a provocation to China and goes against the Shanghai Communique.

So what is the response from China.  It would seem that Xi is losing face by doing nothing except military exercises.  I certainly did not believe that China would shoot down the plane or force it to land.  That would start a war.  Xi has to be measured in his response.  If you look at  the plans for the military exercises, they are planned to surround all sides of Taiwan.  It is a demonstration that at any time Taiwan can be blockaded.  As an island, Taiwan depends on lots of imports.  So any blockade would be problematic.  China does not need to invade.  Now, is the U.S. aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan going into the same area during the exercise?  That would be more tension and more danger.  Accidents happen during training and adversaries being close together is making accidents more likely.

Even if Xi loses face because the people in China believe the response is not strong enough, he will get his third term.  Being a one party country, China can look at long term.  Eventually China will catch up to the U.S. and Taiwan will be reunified with the motherland.  This is Xi and others' thinking.  So this will not hurt them too much.  

Pelosi and the Democrats just committed an unforced error.  By telegraphing she is going, she had no choice but to go because the GOP already said that if she does not go, it shows weakness.  But having gone, Trump already accused Pelosi of causing chaos.  Same with Tucker Carlson.  I am sure even those who egged her on to go will not say the trip is stupid and that Biden cannot control his own party.  So even politically, I think it is a loss for Pelosi and the Democrats.

So it was a stupid thing to do and I don't know what Pelosi is thinking.  Nobody wins except for the military industrial complex.  The only good thing is that WWIII did not happen.

 The country of Sri Lanka is in an economic crisis.  I am no economist and I can't explain how the situation got so dire for Sri Lanka.  But after some research, I can say for sure the Western narrative of the China debt trap is too blame is bogus.

The critics of China say that after loaning money to Sri Lanka and building its port and airport, China now owns the port and may eventually turn it into a military base!   But the debt Sri Lanka owed to China for the constructions are very small amount of its total international debt.  In fact the total amount Sri Lanka owes China is only about 10% of its total debt.  Japan is also owed 10%.  Most of the other 80% are owed to banks affiliated with the IMF, World Bank and the Asian Development Bank.  The first two are controlled by the U.S. and Europe.  The ADB is controlled by Japan and the U.S.  So to say that China is using debt to control Sri Lanka is laughable.

The deal that Sri Lanka made with China during the crisis is that 70% of the port will be leased to China for 99 years and 30% to be kept by Sri Lanka.  In exchange China gives Sri Lanka 1.12 billion dollars which was used to service debt to other foreign banks.  Before the port was built, feasibility studies were done by Canadian and Dutch firms.  So it is believed that it can be profitable.  If the Chinese company that takes over now can produce profits, it will get 70% and Sri Lanka gets 30%.  Will it work?  Too early to tell but in 99 years the port will revert to Sri Lanka control.  Sort of like the British deal with Hong Kong.  Except China gives money to get the deal and not use gunboats to force the deal.

So Sri Lanka has not lost its port to China.  Certainly no military base is being built.  If 90% of the debt in owed by someone other than China, why is China being accused of a debt trap.? As I said about the accusation of Chinese debt traps in Africa, if the Western countries are so concern then just give these countries a better deal than China.  These countries are not stupid. They won't take the worse deal.

By the way, I think I wrote this before.  The only high finance guy on Wall Street who was convicted of fraud during the last economic disaster in 2008 was from Sri Lanka.  I found it hard to believe then that he was the only guilty person during the financial meltdown.  Now I find it hard to believe that no Western financial institution has anything to do with the Sri Lanka meltdown.

 Watched the hearings last night because I thought it was the finale and they will give the final conclusion.  Well, this is a few things I learned:

There will be a sequel in September!  With new witnesses and facts.  So stay tuned.

It was almost all Republicans who testified against Trump.  Those people will be attacked.  Some was already last night.  

They should have people like Hannity testify why they advised Trump to stop the riot when it was going on.  They have been silenced since and even accused the Committee as a witch hunt.  They seem to believe it was a disaster when it was happening but no big deal now.  Last night FOX didn't even air the hearing.

Trump told McCarthy that it was Antifa that was rioting, not his supporters.  If that is the case, I would think he would have ordered the military to stop it quickly.  But he let it go on.  McCarthy and Trump got into a swearing contest.  But McCarthy is kissing Trump's butt today.

Trump looked stupid and weak while trying to make videos to address the nation.  I am surprised these tapes were kept.

Pence's Secret Service people were fearing for their lives.  These people were supposedly brave enough to die to save the person they were guarding.  But the texts from Trump's Secret Service details were erased, and looks to be done so after they were asked for.  It is hard to believe that the texts were erased accidentally.  Lots of theories out there.  I believe that some of the agents were either supportive of the rioters or some of them did not want to protect Trump because he is a traitor to the country.  Either case, it shows the danger our democracy is in.

 Haven't written for about three weeks due to vacation and not finding a topic I want to write about.  I decide to write about former prime minister of Japan, Abe, who was assassinated more than a week ago.  I didn't really want to write about him after his death because in the past I have written to a newspaper editorial criticizing him.  I don't want to be critical of someone who was just murdered.  Then someone pointed out to me about the opinion I wrote about Abe and wonder if I am happy he died.  Well, not really because things are not always black and white.

I criticized Abe because as prime minister, he visited the graves of Japanese war criminals.  An American politician wrote an opinion that the Chinese should get over what happened during WWII and that it is the Japanese prime minister's right to visit the graves.  I wrote wondering if that same politicians would write the same thing if Jews were appalled by the Chancellor of Germany visiting the graves of Nazi war criminals?  Add to that, Abe's grandfather was a war criminal but was not prosecuted because the U.S. felt that he was useful as a politician who could run the agenda the Americans wanted for Japan post war.  Sort of like the U.S. helping Nazis escape prosecution if they were useful to America as scientists for example.

But while I did not approve of what Abe did and what his grandfather did even more, Abe was basically a politician who tried to stay in power.  His agenda included a stronger Japanese military.  Maybe he believed it was necessary to counter the rise of China, although Japan is protected by the U.S. anyway.  He most likely called for a stronger military and visited the graves of war criminals to satisfy the far right in Japan.  At one time he actually called for better relations with China but that was probably shot down by the far right.  So yes, things are not all black or white.  So while I don't particularly like Abe, I don't feel any happiness about his assassination.  The world is not safer when political leaders are killed rather than being judged at the ballot box.

 Roe v Wade was overturned today by the Supreme Court.  This was not surprising given that the ruling was leaked several weeks ago.  Still it is a day of infamy in  American democracy.  Look, I am not for abortion but this is about the right of women.  Let's been frank.  If men are the ones who get pregnant, there will be no laws restriction abortion.  Birth controls would have been invented long ago and we would not only have plan B but also plans C, D, and E today.

This overturn of Roe v Wade demonstrate that elections have big consequences.  Trump appointed three of the justices that voted for the overturn.  He will be a hero to the conservatives just for this alone.  Majority of the country want to keep abortion legal.  Yet a guy who got less popular votes than his opponent single handily change the law of the land.  Well, he did have help from Mitch McConnell who helped the GOP steal two of those three justice seats.  So it is imperative that we get out the vote to keep the slim Senate control in November and keep the White House in 2024.  

Even if are able to accomplish that, it maybe years before we can overturn this decision.  On another note, there is gun legislation that looks to be passed.  Still, it will not go as far as the majority of the country want.  So this begs the question:  If majority of the people cannot get what we want by voting, how free are we really?

 It has been fifty years since Watergate which was the first time in my lifetime that there was a constitutional crisis in the U.S.  We were lucky that disaster was avoided fifty years ago.  But can we avoid disaster this time?

Richard Nixon, unlike what he proclaimed, was a crook.  He tried to cheat on an election and then tried to cover it up.  Donald Trump is worse.   He asked the Russians openly to help him win an election.  And when the CIA said that Russia was trying to interfere, he agreed with Putin rather than our own intelligence service.  Nixon at first refused to turn over the tapes but eventually did although with 18 minutes missing.  Trump refused to turn over records and has some records missing.  We still have not seen his taxes yet.  Some of Nixon's cronies went to jail.  Some of Trump's cronies may go to jail.  It is obvious that the scandal went all the way to the presidency in both cases.

Nixon actually won reelection and probably would have won anyway without cheating.  Trump lost fair and square and then promoted conspiracy theories about fraud in the election.  This led to the insurrection which Trump encouraged.  Nixon resigned peacefully and let Gerald Ford become president and healed the nation.  Trump did not care if the mob killed his vice president.  Trump is still at it now, trying to divide the nation.  

Back in 1972, I was glued to the tv after school for the hearings.  I didn't understand what was going on a lot of the time.  But I, like many people in the country, wanted to see the truth come out and make judgment based on facts.  Today, most people don't care to watch because they have their minds made up depending which party they are affiliated with.  Back then we have Walter Cronkite, whom everybody trusted.  Today we have the conservatives and liberal media with their own distinct audiences.

Back then, many Republicans see that Nixon's actions were bad for democracy and the country.  Today. the Republicans, with the exception of a few like Liz Cheney, only want to get power back and could careless about the state of democracy in the country.  Nixon knew that he would be impeached if he did not resign and there was a good chance he would have been convicted and kicked out of office.  Today, regardless what criminal acts Trump did, there was never enough vote to convict him in the Senate.

So that is why I believe that Trump and his followers are much worse for the democracy of this country than Nixon and his supporters were fifty years ago.  And that is also why I am much more worried about the future of our country than I did fifty years ago.

 I thought that the Jan. 6 Committee did a good job of presenting the case last week in the first of the televised hearings.  To have Ivanka Trump agreeing with Bill Barr that the election results were correct and that it was not stolen was big.  But did it change any minds?

The people who believe Donald Trump's lies would not have tuned in.  After all, they would be watching Fox and other conservative news outlets.  If they had believed all those outrageous lies up to now, I don't think anything presented would change their minds.  All the people who believe Trump caused the insurrection obviously would not change their mind.  So it is like preaching to the choir.  Maybe I am being pessimistic, but it seems like we are too divided to even agree when somebody is trying to kill our democracy.  I will continue to pay attention to the hearings but I doubt the opinions of the country will change significantly.

 Peter Zeihan is a China hater who has claimed that due to low birth rates and other factors. China will have half of its current population by 2050!  He also claimed that China will collapse soon and it knows that so it will invade Taiwan soon while it still can.  He also claimed that Taiwan will have nuclear weapons at a moment's notice and will use it to turn back China.  Despite these outrageous claims, he has a lot of followers who believe he is an expert in foreign relations.  Of course, lots of people make outrageous predictions and have followers.  Gordon Chang comes to mind.  But I was shocked that with such unintelligent babble, Zeihan was deemed credible enough for our defense community to be invited to speak at the Eisenhower School of National Security.

The Eisenhower School is part of the Armed Forces education system and is highly regarded in turning out leaders in the military.  Eisenhower himself graduated from this school which had another name in the past.  So I would think the school would be careful in inviting speakers who should be credible.  It is not credible that China will lose 700 million people in population by 2050 unless there will be a war the magnitude of which we have never seen before.  There is no way that demographic extrapolations will come up with this conclusion.  I have never heard anyone else make that prediction.  

Even if China is on a downward spiral, it does not mean it will invade Taiwan.  And while Taiwan has the talent to produce a nuclear weapon, it would be unlikely that it would make even one on a moments notice, let alone multiple warheads.  Zeihan said that Taiwan can destroy Beijing and Shanghai.  Even if that is the case, China still has dozens of cities of over a million people.  

Zeihan's claims become even more ridiculous.  He said that China then will send millions across the strait in fishing boats with the hope of landing enough to overwhelm Taiwan forces.  But he believes that Taiwan and U.S. navies will destroy these boats before they land, killing millions of Chinese and thus the invasion will fail.

It is laughable what he said.  If Taiwan uses nuclear weapons on China, wouldn't China respond in kind with even more nuclear weapons?  Maybe half a dozen would destroy the whole island, so why would they bother sending people across the strait?  In fishing boats, when they have a powerful navy?  Maybe Zeihan doesn't know that China has a navy and hundreds of nuclear weapons.  If that is the case, what makes him an expert?

What bothers me is that our young officers who are learning geopolitics and military strategies are exposed to such clowns.  It is like Trump listening to his cronies instead of real experts and make idiotic decisions that cause a million American lives.  I think we can understand why Fox News keep inviting Gordon Chang and others like him to blast China.  But who in our defense department invited this fool to speak at one of our prestigious military institutions?

 Have you seen the video of Steve Kerr on the shooting in Texas?  If not, go see it because I can't write better than what he said.  He said it with emotion and anger.   I can't duplicate or even approach that on paper.  But I share the same anger.  Enough is enough!

I don't understand the greed of the members o the NRA and all the politicians who are bought off by the NRA.  Don't these people have children, grandchildren and love ones.? Don't these people and their love ones go to church, grocery stores and schools?  I wonder if these people would still back the proliferation of guns if they or their ones were the ones in that grocery store in Buffalo or that church in Laguna Woods or that school in Texas?

What kind of democracy we live in when 90% of the people want stricter gun laws and an organization can buy off politicians to prevent these laws from passing?  I guess it is the same kind of democracy where politicians follow conspiracy theories rather than science leading to deaths of over a million people in a pandemic.  It is easy to say we love freedom.  But I say the first freedom that a government should protect is the freedom of knowing you and your love ones are safe.  There is no freedom if you are six feet under.

 Yesterday marked the end of the English Premier League season.  It was a fascinating day with Manchester City coming from a two goal deficit late in the game for a 3-2 win and beating out Liverpool by one point in the final standings.  Liverpool had been tied 1-1 in their must win game when they brought in an injured Mohammed Salah in desperation.  Salah scored a goal to help Liverpool win 3-1 to delight their fans until the bad news from Manchester.  It was quite a final day.

With the one goal, Salah finished with 23 for the season to win another golden boot as the league's leading scorer for the third time.  This time he shares it with Son Heung-Min of Tottenham Spurs.  Both beat out the great Cristiano Ronaldo who finished third.  In fact, eight of the top ten scorers are either non-white and/ or born outside of England.  I guess that is why despite having the top league in the world for many years now, the English national team has not done well in international competition.  But the diversity of the Premier League is one of the reason the league is followed by fans in most countries of the world.

Son is the first Asian to win the award and is not surprising that he comes from South Korea.  South Korea had done the best among Asian nations in international competition.  They finished fourth when they co-hosted with Japan.  They beat Italy and Spain on the way to the semi-finals.  This begs the question: why South Korea, with a much smaller population, is way more successful than China in soccer?

It can' be the lack of training or competition.  China has put in a lot of money to bring coaches from all over the world and to improve facilities.  China has been successful in the summer Olympics and has even made in roads in the winter Games this year.  But it has only qualified for the World Cup once!   They had a later start than Japan and Korea but they had caught up in other sports.  Their professional leagued is not as well known as the Japanese J League but has been bringing in foreign imports in recent years to improve the level of play.  Yet I would say that Japan and South Korea is more ahead of China now than China is ahead of Vietnam and Thailand.  So what is the problem?

Well, for some reason which I can't fully explain, it seems to me the communist countries don't do as well in soccer compared to other sports.  Russia and the former USSR were world powers in many sports but they were also rans in European soccer.  East Germany had more medals in Olympics than West Germany but West Germany was way better than East Germany in soccer.  Cuba is great in baseball and boxing but is very weak in soccer.  Does communism stifle creativity and soccer demands creativity?  Is this one area that capitalism always trump communism?  Well, China can still say it can beat Taiwan and Hong Kong on the pitch although that is no consolation. 

 Three months into the war in Ukraine and it is obvious that Russia is getting itself into a quagmire.  This was predictable given that Russia and the U.S. couldn't win decisively in Afghanistan.  As I said before, Ukraine is much more advanced militarily than Afghanistan.  Ukraine is also getting a lot of military aid from NATO.  So I don't know why Putin started out advancing toward Kiev which the Ukrainians would defend to the death.  I thought if he invaded, he would have just try to take the eastern region and declare victory and go home.  He may still be doing that but I think now that some in the West has actually predicting that Ukraine may win, Putin may double down to prove those analysists wrong.  This will make this whole thing a greater tragedy.

So there are three scenarios how this will play out.  One is that Russia wins.  Given all the money and arms the West have put in to defend Ukraine, I doubt that will happen.  There is no way that Russia will take Kiev and actually run the country.  

Unlike some predictions of Western analysists, Ukraine cannot win either.   No matter how many men and tanks the Russians lose, they will always have more men and weapons than Ukraine.  Ukraine cannot drive the Russians completely out of Ukraine.  Russia will likely be stuck holding on eastern parts of Ukraine but cannot move into the western regions near the capital.  They may resort to bombing Kiev on and off.  In this way, Ukraine technically have not lost but it really isn't functioning as a country and the refugees who have left will neve come back.  So Ukraine will never be the same again.

The actual worst scenario to me is if Russia start to lose even in the eastern region.  In that case, Putin may use nuclear weapons.  When a rat is pinned against the wall, it is going to bite.  He may not use Russia's most powerful nuclear weapons but anything nuclear is going to bring massive destruction to Ukraine and kill many more people.  And then would NATO and the U.S. retaliate with nuclear weapons?  This scenario is unthinkable and I hope it will never come to it.

Regardless, all three possibilities are bad for Ukraine.  Diplomatic solution is the only possible way out.  Maybe Putin is a madman and that he will not settle for eastern Ukraine.  But Zelensky cannot possible believe that even if Ukraine fight to the last man, Ukraine will ever be the same nation as before the war.  I don't think the West should encourage Ukraine to fight to the last man.

 Another post about sports and politics.  Greg Norman said that the new golf tour sponsored by Saudi Arabia will go on despite the set back caused by the comments of Phil Mickelson.  Couple of months ago, Mickelson said that Saudi Arabia is scary, killing journalists, sponsoring terrorism etc.  But he is able to overlook all of these things because he thinks that golfers need leverage against the PGA tour.  Those comments alarmed some of the top golfers who opted out of the Saudi tour even though that they had  signed up and received upfront money already.  Still, Norman says now there are enough big name players for the tour to go on, although with less tournaments.  The money is still big.

Mickelson was ostracized for his comments and he stayed out of the lime light for awhile, even missing the Masters.  But apparently he is scheduled to play on the new tour now.  I don't know how much money one needs or how much leverage against the PGA the golfers need.  I think they are very well paid now and certainly much better paid than tennis players.  Whereas many top tennis players worried about Peng Shuai's safety and the WTA boycotted events in China, these golfers have no problems playing on the Saudi tour, making the same money that funded Osama bin Laden and the 9/11  terrorists.  Well, I guess they are no different than the U.S. government who are willing to sell Saudi Arabia the best weapons so that they can commit genocide in Yemen.

 So Wimbledon has banned Russian and Belarussian players from the tournament.  This is just crazy, quoting Novak Djokovic.  This from a country that has invaded other countries all over the world, occupied them for more than a century, committing unaccountable number of crimes against humanity.  The athletes are not making decisions for their national governments.  Daniil Medvedev has no influence on Putin and yet the number two player in the world will not be able to play along with half a dozen men and half dozen women from those two countries who maybe seeded if they were allowed to play.

I can almost understand kicking Russia out of the World Cup.  But even that is hypocritical.  Saudi Arabia just qualified and they been bombing Yemen and causing way more civilian casualties than Russia in Ukraine.  But the UK, like the U.S., is still happy to sell arms to Saudi Arabia.  Individual athletes should not be banned, period.  But then the UK is most hypocritical, as I learned from Hong Kong.  Their press will be happy to ask Eileen Gu, representing China, about the Peng Shuai's alleged assault.  But they would not ask British athletes to comment about Prince Andrew molesting underage women.

Britain is becoming less and less relevant in the world anyway.  From being the most powerful country in the world, it is now just a lapdog of the U.S.  Boris Johnson is a clown.  Tony Blair kissed George Bush's butt and took Britain into a war over fake WMDs.  For that he gets knighted.  Isn't invading a country under false pretenses is what Putin is being accused of now?  But of course, Iraq is much more dangerous to the UK than NATO being in Ukraine to Russia, right?

 Due to the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, people and organizations have directed anger at Russian people and entities.  Some are head turning such as Russia being kicked out of the World Cup qualification.  Some are silly such as the European Tree of the Year contest eliminating Russian trees from consideration.  Some are sad culturally such as banning Russian ballets performances.  In San Diego a restaurant selling food from the former Soviet Republics have been targeted by crank calls that have become more and more vicious even though the owner is ethnically Armenian.

Besides sanctions, which every government officials are calling for, there are also calls for banning anything or anyone Russian in this country.  Some have called for kicking out every Russian student in this country.  Of course, most Americans can't tell who is Russian.  I, for example, thought that all the foreign dance pros in DWTS are Russians.  In reality, a lot of them are Ukrainians.  As the restaurant owner above noted, even Russians who escaped from the former USSR, can be targets today.

I understand the problems Russians face in this country.  But I think it would be much worse for Asian Americans if China gets into a conflict with the U.S.  Russia is a geopolitical enemy of the U.S. like China is.  But China is also a economic competitor.  There is also the matter of racial discrimination against Chinese throughout history.  There are also a lot more Asian businesses in the U.S. than Russian businesses.  Chinese restaurants will be boycotted and vandalized for sure.  It is also much easier to tell Asians from Whites than Russians from other Whites.  So we will certainly be attacked more.  This will be true of all Asian Americans and not just Chinese Americans.

 More than one month into the war in Ukraine, there are many lessons we should have learned.  I don't even know where to begin.  Today I will talk about the lessons that can be transferred to the China-Taiwan situation and see how that goes.

Even before Russia started the invasion, there were already people saying that Russia cannot be allowed to succeed or else China will do the same to Taiwan.  To me the lesson is that if you are truly worried about war then you should listen to your enemy about the line that you cannot cross.  Ukraine was the line NATO cannot cross, according to Russia.  So why did NATO keep courting Ukraine?  China has said that Taiwan declaring independence is the red line so we definitely cannot encourage Taiwan to cross that line.

There are hawks in the U.S. who want to push Taiwan into declaring independence and draw China into war now before China gets even stronger in the future.  That is just insane.  There are only a few percent of people in Taiwan who want independence now.   Overwhelming majority want the status quo right now.  China has no intention to take over Taiwan by force.  China is making money in Taiwan and many Taiwanese are making money and living on the Mainland.  So war is a lose, lose situation for both sides.  So why should the U.S. mettle?

Some pundits said that Russian's invasion of Ukraine should make Taiwan more worried about China and be more on the side of the U.S. than before.  Sure,  seeing the arms support NATO is giving Ukraine, Taiwan can buy more arms from the U.S. over the objection of China.  But Taiwan should also realize that no NATO troops are fighting for Ukraine.  If the U.S. and its allies will not send troops to fight for an independent European nation, what makes Taiwan think that they will send troops to an Asian island that they recognize as being part of China?  Taiwan should realize that the Americans will not come to save it.   The U.S. want to get China into a quagmire and slow its rise.  But to encourage Taiwan to declare independence, it means America does not care about the survival of Taiwan at all.

Western media often paint China and Russia as the same.  But since China's last "war" against Vietnam in 1979, Russia has fought in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia and now Ukraine.  The U.S. has fought in Iraq twice, Afghanistan and Syria among others.  We even invaded Grenada, which is no threat to us.  Russia claims to be threatened by NATO bases in Poland, Hungary etc.  But there are numerous U.S. bases in Japan, Korea and the Philippines near China.  American fleets are constantly patrolling near China's coast.  But when China builds a few airstrips on uninhabited islands in the Pacific, it is considered a threat to world peace?

Truth is, Russia, China and the U.S. are not military threat to each other.  Each can destroy the world with their nuclear weapons.  So there is no reason for one to attack the other two.  That is why this war in Ukraine is so unnecessary.  Even if NATO nuclear missiles are in Ukraine, it is not more of a threat to Russia than the missiles are in Poland.  Russia can also destroy Europe from anywhere.  China knows that the U.S. can hit China even if their missiles are not in Japan or Korea.  But the U.S. also knows that China can destroy Hawaii and cities on the West Coast, if not most of the U.S.  All the posturing do not make anyone more safe.  They can only cause mistakes that lead to conflicts.  So let us not cross any lines and start WWIII.

 The Biden administration is trying to put China into a corner over the Russia-Ukraine war.  It spread the rumor that Putin has asked China to provide military aide to Russia.  Biden supposedly warned that there will be consequences if China helps Russia.  China has denied that Russia asked for help and that China has not agree to give such help.  

The idea that Russia needs military help from China is not credible.  The U.S. makes 36% of arms in the world.  Russia is second with 21%.  China is around 5th with about 5%.  So for Russia, which is a big arms selling nation, to bow its head in shame to ask China for arms is ridiculous.  China has been saying that it is staying out of the fight.  The only shipments which China has made are for food, medical supplies and other aids to Ukraine.  The Ukraine government has said that China has been helpful in trying to get Putin to the table.  China is actually Ukraine's top trading partner.  But that seems to be glossed over by the Western media.  

People assume that China is on Russia's side, given Putin visited with Xi during the Olympics and they announced their friendship.  But while China wants Russia on its side in balancing power against the U.S., it does not want to see an example of a country taking over territory of another.  Territory integrity is important to China since Western countries want to break Xinjiang, Tibet, and Taiwan from China.  

China also does not war and sanctions to cripple the economy of the world which has helped China grow into an economic power.  The West demands that China join the sanction of Russia.  But why would China do that?  It does not believe that sanctions work and that even the West is taking its own economic well being into account in applying sanctions.  The West has kicked most Russian banks out of SWIFT but kept the banks that control oil trade in.  It has stopped short of banning all Russian energy products.  So why should China risk into own economic well being to help the West?  Only the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Australia, South Korea and Japan are sanctioning Russia.  All of Latin America, most of Asia, including India, and all of Africa are not participating.  So 80% of the world population is not involve in sanctioning Russia.  Yet, only China is being singled out.

Meanwhile, the U.S. is asking Iran and Venezuela to increase oil production.  It is saying that sanctions against these countries will be lifted if they cooperate.  I don't know if they will take the bait but China is likely do what is to its best interest.  China does not want sanctions against it.  But sanctions may come in the future no matter what China does.  At least that is what a lot of Chinese believe.  I think they don't like Putin's aggressiveness.  But they don't see why they have to fall in line with the West.  As one Chinese pundit said: "They are asking us to help them fight against their enemies today so that they will be able to fight us later."  I think that is very grim.

 This is the 5th installment of the Russian Ukraine War.  I must say that after writing all these installments that I have not come up with the exact reason why Putin attack at this time.  Perhaps there are multiple factors.  The Time magazine article imply that the arrest of Putin's friend Medvedchuk may be the spark that started the war.  Maybe, but obviously there were many steps that led to the invasion.  So we look at some of these steps.

Georgia may have been a model of what could have happened to Ukraine.  As we talked about previously, Georgia and Ukraine were both going to be the next countries to join NATO.  But in 2008, Russia beat up Georgia and basically took over separatists regions of that country.  No talk of Georgia joining NATO after that.  So perhaps the West and Ukraine could have learned that lesson and just let Ukraine be neutral and avoid a similar or worse fate than Georgia.

But there didn't happen.  We left off with Russia annexing Crimea in 2014.  Russia also helped a separatist movement in the Donbas region of Ukraine.  Basically a civil war broke out in 2014.  It has never ended.  Couple of times there were cease fire but fighting resumed or never stop despite the agreements.  Ukraine refused to concede the separatist region and kept attacking periodically.  But it was not able to make any progress.  Putin, occupied with troubles at home and waging a war in Syria, did not help the separatists advance either.  So it was pretty much a stalemate until 2021.  

As mentioned Medvedchuk was arrested in 2021.  Also Ukraine started using Turkish made drones to attack the separatists.  These drones have been quite effective, even against Russian forces in the war today.  NATO was also more aggressive, flying near the Russian border.  Also Ukraine had since the Russian annexation of Ukraine, have shut off water from the North Crimean Canal which had supplied 90% of fresh water to Crimea in the past.  So the agriculture of Crimea suffered greatly and the Russians have been having more and more trouble trying to supply Crimea with fresh water.  In fact, one of the first things the Russians did after the invasion was blew up the dam that blocked the water going to Crimea.  So all these may have been factors that made Putin believe it was time to invade.

I also think that with the U.S. leaving Afghanistan in such a disgraceful manner gave Putin the idea that the U.S. cannot organize NATO in a  cohesive response.  Or he may have thought that Biden, having been humiliated with the withdrawal from Afghanistan, will want to show that he is tougher than Trump on Russia.  So maybe it was now or it will be too late once Biden gets things organized.  

So Putin tried to test Biden by asking that NATO put it in writing that Ukraine will never be part of NATO.  Biden, on the other hand, could not be looked upon as weak after Afghanistan, refused.  So both sides are pinned to a corner and the Ukrainians are going to be the big losers of this big power politics.

 This is the fourth installment of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  Having annexed Crimea and backed the separatist movements in Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, it seemed like Putin had stopped NATO from taking in Ukraine as a member.  While there were scrimmages in the following years, things seem to somewhat stabilize.  So what made Putin decide to invade?  There are views that he got bad intelligence reports and that made him believe that he can easily win.  There are views that he got bad advice from his inner circle.  But Putin is not Bush.  He is way too savvy to be led down the path by the Russian equivalents of Cheney, Rumsfeld and Neocons.  An interesting point was brought up in Time magazine Feb.14-21 issue.  This was something new I read and had not come across before.  So I will give a summary of this article.

The article talks about Viktor Medvedchuk, an Ukrainian oligarch and politician.  Medvedchuk and Putin are close friends.  Putin is the god-father of Medvedchuk's daughter.  According to Time, Medvedchuk's party is the biggest opposition force in the parliament of Ukraine.  He is the leading voice for Russian interests in Ukraine.  This is important since after the annexation of Crimea and taking over of the Donbas region, there are less and less pro-Russian people voted into the Kyiv government.  So short of going to war, the best way for Putin to influence Ukraine was through Medvedchuk and his party.

The U.S. was well aware of pro Russia oligarchs in Ukraine.  Many of them were sanctioned by Obama in 2014, and Medvedchuk was on the top of list of those sanctioned.   Nevertheless by 2018 these oligarchs had formed an alliance called Opposition Platform-For Life and Medvedchuk was the party chairman.  These oligarchs owned three television network in Ukraine.  They made life miserable for Zelensky's government, especially hammering its response to COVID.

So in February of 2021, shortly after Biden had taken office, Zelensky's government took the opposition television networks off air.  This was with the blessing of the Biden administration.  Shortly after that, Ukraine announced that it had seized the assets of Medvedchuk's family, including a pipeline that brings Russian oil to Europe.  In May, Medvedchuk was charged with treason and placed under house arrest.  Recently, the U.S. accused him of plotting to stage a coup, similar to what the Russians had accused the U.S. of doing back in 2014.

Putin responded by sending 3,000 troops to the Ukraine border right after Ukraine took his friend's assets.  That was the first of many moves that eventually led to over 100,000 troops to the border and then the invasion.  I don't know if Putin started the process of war because of what he felt as injustice to his friend.  But I do think that having his one big influencer in Ukraine silenced, he probably thought  that there was no path to keep Ukraine out of NATO short of war.  

 This is the third installment of what led to the invasion of Russia into Ukraine.  We left off with the intention of NATO admitting Ukraine and Georgia into their fold at the Summit in 2008.  At that Summit, the Bush administration wanted Ukraine and Georgia to be admitted over the protest of Putin.  But France and Germany were against the admission because they fear it will cause Russia to be aggressive.  So NATO decided to tabled the admission until December of that year.  

Georgia, believing that it has the support of the U.S., felt that NATO admission was only delayed but was inevitable.  Georgia had trouble in two of its regions:  Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  Now that Georgia thinks that NATO will admit it, it felt it can be more aggressive toward the Russian separatists movements in these two regions.  The Russians, on the other hand, wanted to show Georgia its displeasure of Georgia wanting to join NATO.  It encouraged the separatists movement in these two regions.  There were parallel joint military exercises at the same time.  One was Georgia and the U.S. and one was Russia and the separatists.  I don't know if Georgia attacked the separatists first or vice versa.  But Russia sent in "peacekeeping forces" (sound familiar today?).   Eventually, Russia recognized the separatists region as independent countries (also sound familiar today).  So a war broke out.  It is considered to be the first European war of the 21st century.

By this time Putin was not president any more due to term limits.  While he still pull the strings, he let Medvedev run the show.  Medvedev had no intention of occupying Georgia and so after pushing out the Georgian forces from the separatists regions, he accepted a cease fire.  As it is today, NATO and the U.S. wanted no part of actually fighting Russia and so the war ended.  While the majority of the world recognize the two regions as parts of Georgia, the reality is that both are run by Russians or people of Russian descent.  So you can say that Russia won.  Also given what happened in Georgia, there was no consideration of Ukraine joining NATO for several years after that.

Fast forward to 2010.  Viktor Yanukovych was elected as president of Ukraine.  While he was elected by winning the eastern part of the country where there were lots of people of Russian descent, he was considered a moderate candidate.  He called for neutrality for Ukraine.  He promised to work with both the European Union and Russia.  That was seen as reasonable.  But the country was not doing great economically and there were corruption charges against him.

Then in 2013 the European Union offered Ukraine membership.  Russia responded by offering loan to Ukraine.  Yanukovych decided against the EU offer.  This led to protests from those who wanted to be part of the European Union and NATO.  The protests turned violent.  There are some evidence that the West supported the protesters with money and strategy.  Yanukovych claimed that his life was being threatened.  There was proceeding for impeachment against him.  At this point Yanukovych fled to Crimea and eventually Russia.

So Russia then claim that Western interference with Ukraine is a threat against Crimea and Russia.  Crimea had been part of the Russian Empire starting 1783.  But in 1954, the USSR transferred Crimea to the jurisdiction of Ukraine in commemoration of the 300th anniversary of Ukraine's union with Russia.  So to Putin, it was quite reasonable to take back Crimea since the coup means Ukraine will likely end up in EU and NATO.  Also the Sevastopol Naval Base in Crimea on the Black Sea is very important to Russia.  So there was no way that Putin will allow that to become a NATO base.   With a Russian majority in Crimea, it was not difficult for Putin to send in troops and annexed Crimea.

 This is the second installment of the Ukraine crisis and how we got to this tragedy.  We left off with the breakup of the USSR and the Warsaw Pact and there was nothing Russia could do about it.  By the time Putin was in his first term as president of Russia, only Georgia and Ukraine were not part of NATO.  Putin was very popular during his first two terms from 2000 to 2008.  He talked about reforms, getting rid of corruption, making law and order a priority.  That is not too different from politicians anywhere.  He did hint at regaining the old glory of the Soviet Union, at least no more NATO advances.  He was tough on the Chechnya rebels.  But luck was also on his side.  While Russia's GDP plummeted after the breakup of the USSR, oil prices skyrocketed during Putin's first two terms.  While the average Russians felt that changing to capitalism made things worse, now they felt having a strongman like Putin is why things are better.

Putin took advantage of the situation.  He jailed some oligarchs and took away their wealth.  He told the people that changing to the West system was terrible, that it was all these capitalists who were stealing from Russia.  Of course, he let those oligarchs who are on his side to keep and continue to make money.  It was not difficult to make a case of the West trying to kick Russia when it is down.  NATO is a military alliance.  What is the purpose of adding countries like Poland, Hungary and the Baltic states to their membership?  These countries don't provide much military might to NATO.  There are no Asian, African or American countries who threaten Europe.  So it was easy to reason that the whole purpose of adding these countries is to threaten Russia or at least embarrass it by surrounding it.  This was an easy sell to the Russian people.  And with the economy improving due to oil sales, Putin's approval rating was sky high.

It could be argue that ambition of Putin to get Russia back to the glory days of the USSR will eventually  lead to war sometime down the line.  But the actions of NATO certainly did not help and some would argue that it led to what is happening today.  In a NATO summit in 2008, NATO announced that Ukraine and Georgia would eventually be admitted into NATO.  That would be a line in the sand for Putin.  There was no way that he could have kept his strongman image and let NATO admit those two, particularly Ukraine.  

It is easy to paint Putin as evil and Russia is bad.  But things are never black and white like that.  Russians are no different than any other people.   They want a better life for their family.  They have pride in their nation.  So if anyone can show that others are humiliating or threatening them and at the same time provide them with a better standard of living, they are going to follow that person.  The West was kicking Russia when it was down but at the same time craved the oil that Russia can provide cheaply.  So it can be said that the West actually help the rise of Putin to the detriment of the world.

So what happens to Georgia and Ukraine was fairly predictable, given what happened in that NATO summit and the ambition of Putin.  Next will go over what happened after that summit and eventually the annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014.

 The war in Ukraine has started.  While it is easy to say this is all the doing of a madman, a brutal dictator or a thug, it would not be totally true.  Putin is all of the above but if we ignore the history that led to all of this, then we are likely to repeat this type of tragedies over and over again.  I am no historian and some of the facts I recall may not be 100% accurate.  I am also writing this as I am thinking about it and so I don't know how many blogs is going take me.  Hopefully this is coherent.

The USSR and the U.S. were allies in WWII along with Western Europe.  Post war the two sides went separate ways.  Just like we were proud of winning the war, the Soviets were proud of their victory.  The U.S. and the Soviets built the two biggest military powers in the world.  Unfortunately, they were no longer allies as they represent two opposite systems.  Both wish to destroy the other's system, believing that they would suffer if the other side wins.  The Soviets were able to match the Americans militarily but they failed miserably economically.  So unlike what Reagan supporters believe, we didn't win the Cold War due to strength.  We won because the USSR self-destructed economically.

So Gorbachev decided to make peace with the West.  The Soviets were going to change their system and try to imitate the West with the help of the West.  Gorbachev believed that if Germany and Japan can rise from the ashes of their defeat in WWII with the help of the West, surely the USSR can do the same.  But the help he needed never came.  Left on its own with poor leaders like Yeltsin, corruption within the government and no previous experience with capitalism, only a few oligarchs became rich.  The rest of the country became even more poor.

So the USSR started to break up.  The Warsaw Pact also collapsed.  The economically weak Russia could not do much to stop the bleeding.  By the time the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania left the bloc, there wasn't much left except for Ukraine and Georgia.

Ukraine was the closest of the former Soviet Republics to Russia.  There were and still are many Russians in Ukraine.  Most people in Ukraine can speak Russian.  Also we look at the map, you can draw a straight line from England to France to Germany to Poland to Ukraine to Russia.  Once Poland became part of the EU, Ukraine is the only buffer between Russia and NATO.  So you can see why Ukraine is so important to Russia.  Before the breakup, Ukraine actually had the third largest nuclear arsenal in the world.  When the deal was made to breakup,  Ukraine wanted continue Russian support and gave back the nuclear weapons.  

Ukraine, however, was split two factions.  Those west side of the country tended to favor Europe but the east side favor Russia.  Meanwhile the EU was snapping up all the countries west of Ukraine.  The EU wanted these countries to join so they can station troops and missile close to Russia, so the Russians reasoned.  The Western Europeans would say that they just want to spread democracy and improve the economic status of the Eastern European countries.  You can be the judge of who is right on this.  I would say that some of these countries are democratic in name only.  Economically, most of them are better off than when the Soviets dominated them but they are not anywhere near Western European level.  I think by incorporating them into the EU, Western Europe just got a source of cheap labor, something the Brits missed out since Brexit.

Well, I digress and getting tired so I will stop for now.  Next will go over how Putin's view on this and how he used it to his advantage and eventually took Crimea.

 Now that the Winter Olympics are over, I will give some final thoughts. 

China, as expected, did a great job of hosting and putting on a show.  Also expected, it got the "but" review from western media.  That is, the media will say things went well, but....For example NYT:  China Celebrates a Joyless Triumph.  USA Today:  The most controversial, most unwelcoming Olympics of our lifetime are now over.  So there were many articles such that nobody got COVID from the Olympics so China deserves credit but there was no fun, no interactions, too much trouble for the journalists etc.

But there were many accounts by athletes of them having great times and impressed with the Beijing organization.  Aaron Blunck, an American skier, praised China during a news conference saying what he read before coming here seems to be false.  Shortly after, he reported that his twitter account was suspended.  He thought that it was because his comments about China.  But the account was restored shortly afterward so I think it was most likely a glitch, not an American government effort to limit his speech as some in the Chinese media pointed out.

Only about five countries joined the American diplomatic boycott.  Then the U.S. requested dozens of diplomat passes to the Games.  I don't know why they requested them if you are boycotting.  I am sure the countries that follow our lead wonder too.  Why do the diplomats need to be there?  Maybe they are security forces to protect American athletes since Nancy Pelosi is worried about their safety if they speak out against China!  It seems that the American athletes only have nice things to say.  And even if they don't, China is not stupid enough to harm them when the whole world is watching.  I think Pelosi have more important things than that to worry about in our own country.

Eileen Gu won two gold and one silver, becoming the biggest star for China.  People are calling her traitor or at least asking if she is still American.  Bill Maher said that it is not racist to ask if she is still an American.  Well, he and others did not ask if Zoe Atkin, an American competing in the same event as Gu, is still an American after she represented Britain in Beijing because her father was born in Britain.  Nobody is asking if Kailee Humphries, the two time gold medalists for Canada but won a gold for the U.S. in Beijing, is still a Canadian.  There are many instances of athletes representing a country that is not where they were born or live.  Nobody ever question their loyalty except for Gu.  So you tell me if this is racist or sinophobia.

As an aside, Bill Maher also criticized John Cena for apologizing to his Chinese fans in Mandarin (he speaks Mandarin very well) because he mistakenly called Taiwan a country.  Well, Maher should know that Taiwan is not recognized by about 190 countries in this world as a nation, including the U.S.  So Cena is right and Maher should apologize to Cena.

The figure skating controversy is very sad.  The Russian girl is 15.  I am sure she didn't take those medication by choice.  She would have no idea what they are.  The risk vs benefit is very high.  It would be malpractice for any doctor to prescribe these for a young girl.  Whoever put her up to it should be in jail.  So the name changes from the USSR to the Unified Team to Olympic Athlete of Russia to ROC but the cheating continues.  Not only that, you see how the coaches treat the girls with whole world watching.  I can't imagine what they do to them in training when nobody is watching.

Mikaela Shiffrin is a class act.  After a disastrous Olympic, she talked to the press with politeness and humility without blaming anyone or feeling sorry for herself.  I am sure she will bounce back and continue her path of becoming the GOAT.

I will stop now but lets see how the press coverage for Italy in 2026 will go.  During the first big wave of COVID in 2020, Italy was suffering the worst.  It had to go to complete lockdown, same as China at that time.  The New York Times, on the same day, published articles on the two countries' response.  The Chinese effort was labeled draconian.  The Italian effort was hailed as heroic.  Need I say more?

 I am not a big fan of the Winter Olympics.  I can't really get into watching most of the sports.  I did watch some figure skating over the weekend.  I felt very bad for Zhu Yi, the American born as Beverly Zhu, who is now skating for China.  She did very poorly in the team event, falling badly in both the short and long programs.  She has been blasted in Chinese social media.  Many are questioning why an American is taking the only woman figure skating spot on the Chinese team ahead of a Chinese born skater.  Worse, some question if she failed on purpose because she is not really Chinese.

I find these attacks on Zhu horrifying.  First of all, if China had someone better, their Olympic leaders certainly would not have chosen Zhu.  Somehow after Lu Chen had won the world championships about twenty years ago, China has not produce another female skater that is able to compete for the podium.  I thought back then that there would have been a wave of female skater who would dominate the world.  If the U.S. can produce a Michelle Kwan, why wouldn't China produce several of them?  So there must be problems in their system that they have nobody stepping up now.  Zhu, obviously was not among the top American women so she decided to represent China.  She was not expected to medal.  But in trying too hard to show that she belong on the Chinese team, she stumbled badly.  She does not deserve such hatred.  If the Chinese people think that Zhu does not belong, then they should question their own Olympic leaders to see why they have failed.

Having seen what has happened to Zhu, I really worry about another American who is representing China, Eileen Gu.  Gu is in three events in freestyle skiing.  Unlike Zhu, Gu is a strong contender to medal.  She is dubbed the snow princess in China.  If they get mad at Zhu for failing, can you imagine what they will say about Gu if she fails to medal?

 Novak Djokovic is now officially out of the Australian Open and has left the country.  There was incompetence and confusion on the part of the Australian government but ultimately it was the right final decision.  Nobody is above the law, no matter the wealth or celebrity status of the person.

Serbia and all the anti-vaxxers are of course dismayed at the ruling.  They said it was unfair because if the provincial government had not accept Djokovic's application for exemption, he would not have gone to Australia in the first place.  But to me, there was something fishy about what Djokovic did.  He knew he was not vaccinated and so needed an exemption.  His request for exemption was that he had COVID already.  But he got a positive test on Dec. 16 or 17.  How did he know that he would get infected then or any time after?  At that late date, he would not have enough time to get two shots before going to Australia.  So the only way was to get infected to get an exemption.  So if he did not get infected, he would not have gone to Australia to defend his title?

Djokovic then was seen in public without masks at least couple of times right after the positive test result.  He is either extremely irresponsible, which should give Australia pause of admitting him in any case, or the test result was faked!  He was not going to get vaccinated because he is anti-vax.  So did he planned to get infected or get a fake medical result to get an exemption?

So to me the whole thing smell fishy and so I think Australia ultimately did the right thing by banning him.  You cannot ask the whole population to sacrifice and then let somebody from another country flaunt the rules.  

I do think that Djokovic should not be banned for 3 years because he was deported as some in Australia have suggested.  That would be unfair because Australia shared some responsibility for giving him an exemption initially.  If it didn't, then Djokovic would not have flied to Australia and thus would not be subject to deportation.  So the 3 year ban rule should not be enforced here.

 Shortly after Jan.6 last year, I thought that the power Trump over the Republican party was over.  When Republican members of Congress were scared stiff from the riot and leaders such as Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell said that Trump was responsible, you would think that the Trump era was over.  Now a year later, claims of election fraud continues, Republicans are saying that it was not a riot at all.  Nobody from the Republican side, except for a few people like Liz Cheney, mention that Trump is at fault for the insurrection.  Nothing from McCarthy and McConnell.

Only Liz Cheney and her father Dick Cheney among Republicans showed up to honor the Capitol police and remember the day.  Nothing from Mitt Romney.  Nothing from Mike Pence whom the rioters want to hang.  The prospect of elections not certified or riots post election are as real today or even more so compared to last year.  Our democracy is in big danger.  If we don't have peaceful transfer of power, do we really have a democracy?