 All right, so I know you've all been waiting to hear this, but I was wrong. I was wrong. I underestimated the irrationality of Vladimir Putin. I underestimated his complete insanity and how crazy he is, how uncalculated he is, and how willing he is to put everything on the line, including his own presidency, for the sake of what did we call it the other day? What did he call it? The greater Russian whatever, spirit, the greater Russian nation, the greater Russian ethnic group, the greater Russian homeland. And yes, in spite of the fact that I said I did not think that he would invade, he did. He's crazy. I should stop trying to predict what crazy people will do. That is probably my mistake. He is, you know, nuts. This is a suicide for Russia. It is probably suicidal for him, although we'll see how it all plays out. It is a disaster for everybody involved. It's obviously a disaster for the Ukrainian people. For the Ukrainian soldiers. I don't know if you heard today on Snake Island in the Black Sea, which is a small, tiny little island in the Black Sea, which had a research, a Ukrainian research facility, scientists, 13 soldiers there to defend the island. The Russians asked them to surrender. They refused. They were all killed to the last man. This is ugly, but this is war. This is the way war is. And I know there are the people out there from, you know, from Bronze Age pervert to some perverts who follow this show, who think war is cool, who think Vladimir Putin is a man because he is willing to go to war and he's willing to kill and he's willing to destroy and he's willing to knock things down and blow things up and destroy human life. But no, Vladimir Putin is just another little Attila, another little monster, another little political hack whose life is worthless and whose life will be destroyed by his own actions. Nothing virtuous here, nothing worth emulating here, nothing worth admiring here. What you're seeing today is the worst of mankind, not the best, on the Russian side. And we will see. We will see it all happen. A lot of this is going to depend on the commitment of the Ukrainians to fight, the willingness of them to engage with the Russians, to fight them off and to resist. We'll see. It's way too early to tell how this is going to play out. But this is not going to be cheap. This is not going to be cheap for Putin. This is going to be expensive. The casualties on the Russian side are already mounting. Body bags are already being shipped home. And, you know, T-72 tanks, which I've talked about in the past, are already being destroyed. Helicopters have already been brought down. Now, it's likely Russia wins this. They've got overwhelming force. But think about the motivation of the Russian soldiers. Thank you, Kevin. I appreciate that. Think of the motivation of the Russian soldiers. Why are they there? They don't care. I don't know if you saw the initial pictures of Russian prisoners of war captured by the Ukrainians. They don't look highly motivated to be doing what they're doing. What the hell are they doing there? Were their families at risk? Was their, quote, liberty in danger? No, Russian troops are not particularly motivated. Russian people out in the streets to protest, thousands. Last I saw, 1,800 people are being arrested. That suggests to me that a lot of people out in the streets of 1,800 people are being arrested already. These are people with great courage given what Putin does to his opponents. Poisons them, tortures them, kills them, puts them in jail for life. We're seeing demonstrations in Moscow, in St. Petersburg, in smaller cities around Russia. Hard to find, by the way, these pictures in this news. It doesn't just appear in the feeds. When I look at Google News, it is nothing about this. Putin is taking an economy that is less than half the size of Germany's. Less than a quarter of the size of Germany on a per person basis. An economy that has been floundering for years. An economy with very little economic growth, dependent on natural resources. And that is it, nothing else cooked. Thank you for the support. And now with sanctions, you know, now with the crippling of assets, with the shutting down of the new gas pipeline to Germany. Please for now we'll see how long the West Resolve will hold out. He is about to cripple his own country. Putin has done nothing here, beneficial to anybody. He is completely detached from reality. This will make Russia poorer. It will make Russia even more dependent on natural resources than it is because they won't be able to do anything else. It will make Russia technology poorer. Russia depends on its technological advancement, on importation of technology from the United States. And the United States just banned that exports to Russia. You know, Russia has just proved itself to be an aggression nation, a nation committed to war and nation of war mongers. Therefore it is a pariah on the world. And the only thing, the only thing will allow Russia to gain anything from this. The only thing that can allow Russia to benefit at all from this is the West's weakness. And the West is already weak. I cannot believe that the United States still has an ambassador in Moscow. I cannot believe that we still have diplomatic relations with them. I mean, even Ukraine only last night cut off diplomatic relations with the Russians, which is kind of a joke. I cannot believe that Russia is still treated. Do you know that Russia right now, that Russia is chairs? The Security Council meetings of the United Nations? There's a good reason for you for us to leave the United Nations tomorrow. A pariah nation like Russia should not be a member of the Security Council, should not be in the United Nations. Of course neither should three-quarters of the countries that are in the United Nations be there. The whole institution should be dissolved. But it is the weakness of the West, which is the only possibility of Russia benefiting here. I mean, what Biden, poor, weak, senile, pathetic old Biden should have done today is not only cut off diplomatic relations with Moscow's broader ambassador home, not anyplace sanctions with Putin himself. Note that no sanctions were placed on Putin, on a bunch of oligarchs surrounding Putin. How about freezing Putin's assets, I wish we could, in Switzerland? That would send a little shock signal to Putin. How about announcing? This would really be cool, right? How about announcing? A complete lifting of all restrictions on fracking, on production of natural gas, and in the export of natural gas from the United States and the introduction of fracking and the production of natural gas from the UK. And guess who's rooting for Putin? If it's not your favorite former president, Trump, who still thinks Putin is a brilliant, genius strategist who's manipulating the world as he plunges Russia into poverty and into suicide. Bannon, who thinks Putin is great because Putin, you know, there's no woke in Putin. Putin doesn't tolerate woke and doesn't tolerate transgender people. So Putin is a good guy. Yeah, he only takes people he disagrees with and cancels them. But Putin knows how to cancel people. He literally cancels them. He puts a bullet in their brain. It is sick, sick to see the American right including people here on this chat. Sick to see the American right, the right that is supposed to represent the founding fathers, supposed to represent liberty and freedom in this country, supposed to stand up for individual rights, supposed to be pro-capitalist. It is sick to see a right defend a brutal dictator because he's anti-left, defend somebody who shoots his opponents, kills his opponents, and then people are comparing him to Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau is awful, horrible, pathetic. But Justin Trudeau is not invaded a country, has not killed dozens of people, has not murdered his political opponents. Not yet anyway, he's heading there, but not yet. And yet to you it's all the same because there's only one enemy. There's the left, oh my God, the left. And if we have to hug Hitler and adopt Hitler in order to defeat the left, let's go for it. This is not America. These are not people who should lead America. Flynn, Mike of Flynn, Trump's biggest cheerleader. Mike of Flynn is justifying Putin because he's fighting for his ethnic purity, I guess. This is what we've come to. Tucker Carlson, who for days and days and days now has been justifying anything Putin would do. He's been cheerleading Putin. Why? Because Putin's a man's man. He knows how to use muscles. He knows how to take people out. Oh, we admire people like that because to hell with individual rights, tell us America, tell us Americanism, tell us what this country stands for. We support muscle. You see it here in the chat with the guy putting up all those, the emojis of muscle because that's what we've come to. We've come to a point in this country where we admire men of muscle. We admire the thugs. We admire the warmongers. We admire the people who are willing to go out there and destroy and break all in order to defend the left, in order to attack the left. As long as we attack the left, individual rights are out. Reason is out. Capitalism is out. None of that matters. As long as we don't have transgender people. We, unfortunately, when I say we, I'm talking about much of the American rights, unfortunately, not all, not all, but much. Too many. Too many. Truly despicable and truly disgusting. How to get that off my chest. Shali, thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to Iran book show dot com slash support. I go to Patreon, subscribe star locals and just making a appropriate contribution on any one of those, any one of those channels. Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content. And of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who already subscribers and those of you who already supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.