PATIENCE v. TIME
Wednesday, March 16, 2022
For 200,000 years of human walking erect, war hasn’t changed much – blood spills on soil and graves are dug, and very little changes. Names of battlefields, combatants, tyrants and heroes change, but the game of war is as old as civilization.
We are so smart, but we have not evolved.
Russia of a month ago is history now.
There is a new Russia.
It was previously tolerated and abhorred now by everyone, not under Putin's thumb or avoiding association …
We are moving from a COVID-war to climate wars with another war in Europe, as we’ve seen for so many centuries as borders move when strong forces redraw maps. Tactics of brutality quashing resistance while innocents become ground-up carcasses to be overrun by tanks and wagons and horses – the weapons of war change and old media evolved to live-action film by drone.
Weaponry has evolved, but have humankind’s ways of warring changed?
How do we separate wartime from peacetime?
The cold war was over but was that peacetime with the peace-dividend sustainable – or simply a pause?
In most parts of the world, black-swan events were painted as independent of one another, rather than inexorable components in an endless morass of change, like a lava flow obliterating everything in its path. The world of yesterday does not look like the world of tomorrow. We know this. We see this. It is too soon to tell whether we will love tomorrow more than yesterday, but we probably will.
I do not doubt that Ukrainians will survive and thrive – they will defend their country and stand proud on the rubble of their history. Many will fight, many will die – because that is warfare. We can help. Most countries can. We can send food, supplies, weapons, technology and soldiers.
Sadly, I fear NATO countries and non-NATO countries too will send blankets before bombs and avoid sending manpower at all costs. That vacillation is not new in wartime or peacetime. When it is most dangerous for everyone, weak-nerved leaders mouth the right words, but they migrate to softness and diplomacy when someone turns up the heat.
Reader feedback:
Well said but no closer to a real resolution, SC, Chestermere, AB
Putin is crazy like a fox, and he’s definitely in the henhouse now. What he needs is a way out that doesn’t involve having his tail pinned up on the wall. Something he can sell to his people as a gain, and save face. NATO and the western countries are going to have to allow his crimes to go unpunished, at least for now. I believe the fox is just crazy enough to burn down the henhouse if there is no other way out. The sanctions will take effect over time and the other foxes will eventually turn on this one. Self-interest will see to that, DM, Okotoks, AB
The shocking part about this twenty-first century war has is that Putin simply initiated it without provocation. Throughout time there have been religious wars, racial wars and, of course wars for territory like Alexander the Great or Ghengis Kahn. This war seems to have come from Purim’s madman desire to destroy a neighbouring state and dominate its people. It feels like Hitler all over again, but in 2022, most of us thought such barbarism was a relic of the past. It is horrible, GB, Calgary, AB
We are not doing enough. Unfortunately, the threats of a bully are holding the western democratic world hostage. Our sanctions may weaken the economy for the Russians, but it affects us all.
High fuel and grocery costs are a small price to endure compared to an escalating war and the brutal attacks being waged against the Ukrainians, but I fear it may come in any event.
China watches the actions of the western world while it eyes Taiwan. It now looks to be supporting Russia.
NATO and the US have drawn red lines which Russia apparently dare not cross and those align with land borders. There seems to no red lines when it comes to the lives of women and children lost so cavalierly by Russian forces. Russia with a 144M people and a GDP of $1.8T - about the same of Canada’s with 36M people – facing off against the UK, the EU, Germany, Japan, Australia with several million more people and a GDP of several $trillions. No one wants World War 111, but this is so reminiscent of Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia is 1939 and thereafter Poland. Hitler should have been confronted then; well before then when building his military, as Putin should be confronted now.
If Putin does not conduct urban warfare in Kyiv and decides to pulverize the city to dust – do we just continue to watch?
Although democratic countries are involved and doing what they can to punish Russia and prevent another world war I keep remembering this poem, I heard as a child:
First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the labor leaders, but I did not speak out because I was not a unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
As one day became another and others disappeared, gypsies, mentally retarded, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, criminals, anti-socials and emigrants, I remained silent because I was not one of them.
Then it was they came for me, but no one spoke for me because by then there was no one left to speak, RT, White Rock, BC