The Kremlin released this fresh photo of Putin posing today with a tourist, proving the man is alive and well. (IMG: fishbirdiz blog) by Preston Clive The sudden dip-out of Vladimir Putin from real-time press appearances, his missed meetings, and his re-emergence only into the carefully stage managed appearance with his Supreme Count Prez with a total absence of global press, this has got tongues fully a-wag with rumors that the man is suffering ill health. I wonder. I wonder because in the very tense lead-up in a heavily deteriorated situation that is just thisshort of leading to outright military hostilities between two highly agitated global superpowers--it is during this nerve-wracking period in this kind of scenario that the intelligence services of both sides always go into total overdrive. In the highly uncertain state just like the situation right now between The United States and Russia, each side wants that extra advantage, each side wants to tinker with and undermine the abilities and the infrastructure of the other side, and they want to do this badly as a matter of emergency. Every day a president and his chiefs of staff are briefed by the intelligence services directorate of their nation for changes in opponent's dispositions, movement of armaments, shifts of and assessments of military leadership directly affecting the situation, and of course the health of the opposition. Of course, in addition, operations to disrupt the continuity, the infrastructure, and the reliability of the information and equipment used by the opponent go on apace and are continuously monitored by the executive arm. Equally--with history to guide and instruct us--the covert assets of nations around the globe have always made attempts during this kind of a stand-off to bump the opposition leaders off by 1) funding internal coups de tat, 2) purchasing the loyalty of a member of the leader's inner circle who then turns around and tries to a) enable access to the leader by an outside assassin, or b) tries to poison/otherwise assassinate the leader his or herself (see, for example, Judith Exner on many failed the attempts on Catsro's life and--I'm not kidding--beard-removal). Could the fingerprints of covert action be on the possible illness of Vladimir Putin? There's no doubt that there are human intelligence assets flooding everywhere and anywhere having anything to do with Putin, Ukraine, and Russian movements of troops, opposing assets and ordnance. It's certainly a strong possibility, now that the killing of military and political opponents has become public and routine since the 9/11 attacks. While we're on the subject . . . are we really dancing with the real possibility of the unthinkable--not only war with Russia but nuclear war with Russia? Are Mr. Obama and Mr. Putin that off of their rockers that they would allow a tiny regional conflict and the concept of saving face to threaten all of mankind? I know that President Obama finds it irresistible to send troops when a hotspot appears on the globe like a tumor on an MRI. But he must understand that the US has been injecting troops over sovereign borders over the last 14 years with impunity, feeling an entitlement simply by dint of it falling in line with American political viewpoint. Putin does it once to a neighbor right over his border, where he felt threatened, and BLAP the world wants to put him out of business. I do believe that Putin is wrong to be sticking his nose and his arms into the Ukraine--but not unlike the US with Iraq and elsewhere, oil entered into the equation for Putin (his pipeline to east Europe customers runs through Ukraine). Our threatening him to the extent that global annihilation is on the table, for his doing what we have wrongly done after 9/11 to Iraq, it irks me as hypocritical. There will be no nuclear war. Simply because there cannot be one. 3/13/2015***