As an historian, I've read countless books on wars. One can almost say, “history is war.” War is the most horrible, hideous invention mankind has ever devised. It brutalizes the people who directly fight in it; many of them become inhuman monsters because there is little a person won't do to survive. The people who start wars—the Hitlers and their ilk—never fight in them. They send the future of their country to get slaughtered. And it is, far and away, 99%, the innocent who suffer—not just women and children and aged, but even the soldiers, who would never have thought of killing anyone on the “other side” if not “convinced” to by their “wise leaders.”
Yes, tragically, wars are sometimes required. When a country's people are threatened with invasion or attack, war is necessary because protecting its people is one of the 2 or 3 major purposes of the government. And, yes, if America has the financial wherewithal, within the boundaries of fiscal frugality and responsibility, to help our friends if they are attacked by a brute, I have no objection, within reason, to helping—as long as no one nearer with an equal or greater ability and a higher national interest is available to assist. Please read that last sentence again. I have a few questions based on it:
1. The United States government (in other words, American taxpayers, let's be clear about this) is over 31 TRILLION dollars in debt. None of us has the slightest clue how much money that is, it's just a bunch of zeros after 31, money you and I need for our lives, but taken, bit by bit, from our paychecks. Is our government, given the challenges we currently face at home, acting within the boundaries of “fiscal frugality and responsibility” in adding untold billions to taxpayers’ debt by financing a dictatorial autocrat some 5,000 miles from America’s east coast?
2. Is Ukraine our “friend”? Since when is that totalitarian state, run by a godless villain who is closing churches in his own country, our “friend”? Since Vladimir Putin attacked it? Is Ukraine our “friend” or is Putin Joe Biden's personal enemy? If you ask me, given the ever-increasing threat that China poses to world civilization everywhere, we would have been a whole lot smarter to try to cultivate at least a minimal friendship with Putin (yes, he's a rodent, but realpolitik is replete with rats). That would give us a 2 to 1 edge over Xi Jinping—possible armies (or nukes) coming from the east and west of China (and south, if India, no friend of China, is included in our alliance). But our brilliant Commander-in-Chief, without a scintilla of foreign policy prudence or who the real enemy is, has sent Putin scurrying into the arms of Xi. Yeah. 2 to 1. AGAINST us.
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3. Is someone closer to Ukraine who might have a more pressing concern about what is happening there? Yes. It's a place called “Europe.” They even have a “Union”. They have mucho dinero. But they don't seem one-tenth as concerned about what is happening in Ukraine as Bident and his RINO buddies are.
4. One final question here. As I noted at the beginning, war is a terrible, hideous thing, unbelievably cruel, inhuman, even a return to barbarism. If our President is so concerned about the people of Ukraine, why isn't he busting his gut trying to save their lives by getting a peace settlement? As Benjamin Franklin said, “There never was a good war or a bad peace.” That may or may not be absolute, but peace is surely worth an effort that Biden shows utterly no interest in.
We have a lot of boomers in America—I am one, too—whom I greatly respect, but who seem to be still living in the old Cold War, believing Russia remains our greatest foe. Thus, any wavering in our commitment to full support for Ukraine is always interpreted as “pro-Putin.” I would most kindly suggest these people consider moving out of the 1960s and into the 2020s. Biden has spent at least $115 billion dollars to save Ukrainian lives; concurrently, 10s of thousands of young Americans are dying every year from drugs flowing across our southern border from China and Mexico. How many AMERICAN lives could have been saved if Biden had used that $115+ billion on our border rather than Ukraine’s? Why are Ukrainian lives more valuable than young American lives?
I grew up during the Cold War, the ideological standoff between freedom and communism. The USSR collapsed and we thought the Cold War ended. But it didn't. Only the location has shifted—to Communist China who, because of its wealth and population, is a far greater threat than the USSR ever was. Some Americans need to get over their obsession with Russia and realize who the TRUE danger to mankind now is. THAT is the greatest lesson of Covid.
Frankly, I despise Putin, but I DO comprehend some of his motivation. The Euroweenies, stupidly, wanted to put Ukraine into NATO. Common sense should tell us why Putin would oppose a NATO nation right on his border—just like we didn’t want Cuba on ours. He wants a “buffer” between himself and NATO; the same thing Stalin wanted after World War II. It’s the Russian mindset. It’s not unreasonable, if we will simply try to see things from their perspective. Plus, the Ukraine Donbass is 75% Russian-speaking and almost half ethnic Russian. There is much, much more to Ukraine than a thug, Putin, attacking a bunch of innocent sheep. Well, the Ukrainian people are innocent; it’s always the innocent who suffer in war. But Zelensky is every bit the rogue Putin is.
His house is on fire and Joe Biden is busy helping some godless, dictatorial creep across the world fix his toilet—with our money. That’s bad enough. But the real crime is not working for peace and understanding.
My western novels are still on sale, Whitewater and River Bend, and are available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Eliva.com. A third western, Allie’s Dilemma, is available for Kindle only. Also search YouTube “mark kevin lewis” for some of my Bible commentary videos. And my blog at thailandlewis.blogspot.com for other articles.
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