Wars are fought by men too old to fight for those who die too young. The African proverb is only too apt for the first invasion of another country since the bomb in the Second Wolrld War put an end to that barbaric practice that is now a violation of international law.
Russia’s invasion is a slap in the face of international law and order. The great democracies of the NATO Alliance leapt to Ukraine’s aid. And yet Ukrainians die as the rest of the world watches the showdown to see which side of the conflict blinks first.
By a hair, America was on hand to pump prim Europeams into action for their own sake but not until Ukraine proved its ravid defiance of being violated. By them, foiled Russin the glove. The result has been a bloody stalemate ever sinc
.The illegal war was lost before it ever began when President Zelensky declared he needed ammo, not a ride when offered safe harbor out of danger when attacked. With that ad, Zelensky showed the world that he and his people had each other’s back, in part because they had learned from Russia’s dress rehearsal when it snatched up prime Ukrainian properties in Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk. In the seven years between attacks, Ukraine firmed its resolve about a next attack that without a doubt would come.
Regardless of international law. Russia had been allowed to get away with illegally annexing parts of Ukraine. The next time, Ukraine would not stand to be treated like a second class citizen of the global world, not when it was a better citizen to begin with.
For the last century at least, Russia has been a miserable place. The country’s literary history shows a melancholy, thoughtful streak that put Russia at the top of the world’s cultural treasures. But there was also the Pavlovian strain aimed at training dogs to beg for food.
Ukraine by contrast is a happy land of sunshine, sunflowers and fields of grain. It certainly wants to grow in the secure democratically profitable way. But it is content to accept life as it is, including by asserting its right to be respected for strengths that all the money in the world can’t buy. That’s where Ukraine has taken on all the goliaths of the modern world.
As Ukrainians die and are daily traumatized by missiles and shelling, Russia confabs with the Saudis destroying existing sports establishments with megabucks offers too big for players to resist. Russia does well with the trade deals that countries like India find irresistably low due to the sanctions on which they stay neutral for unspecified reasons no doubt linked to a historical past. Israel too stays neutral maybe to steer clear of Iran more than happy to supply Russia with weapons. And as all that goes down, pundits in the main supporting NATO alliance debate the question of how long the support can continue.
Most South American countries urge an instant cease fire and they recently urged the Europeans to stop supplying weapons to Ukraine. Only Chile’s new young president stated uncategorically that Ukraine must hold out against any seizure of its lands by Russia.
“If Russia gets away with this now,” Gabriel Boric told the BBC. “Then who’s next? You, me? It could be anybody.”
Both NATO and the US separately have affirmed that they are in this with Ukraine to the end. US President Biden has already gone on record to state that Russias has already lost the war. That certainly seems the case as Russia becomes a growing pariah in the global community of near-200 countries. He recently pulled out of a Summit in South Africa due to the arrest warrant issued against him by the International Criminal Court in the Hague. He pulled out of a UN brokered grain deal through Turkey that would have fed famine-stricken counties in Africa. That sure won’t win him any friends. But if he’s lost the war, then why does it continue?
Perhaps Vladimir Putin of Russia possesses the same reality gap skill set as Donald Trump of the US. If the don’t admit a failure, their enablers will believe it didn’t happen. It’s a practiced skill somewhat akin to the intimate relationship between the ventriloguist and the dummy. And while those two men hold tight to their base, the rest of the world is undergoing a version of the Russian aggression against Ukraine that the US barely missed.
Donald Trump lost te recent US presidential election but he continues to exert influence in his country by subvrting the law. He boasts about indictments as a badge of courage, fund-raises off that boast and stalls the legal process to keep justice at bay.
Under indictment himself, Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister of Israel just pushed through an anti-democratic reform highly unpopular with his people but dear to the conservatives of his country. In fact, many recent elections around the world have been tightly fought, a good many of them run-offs. Regarless of which side won, the contest seemed to be a battle between the old guard and the people chomping at the bit for a change to progress.
Written law from the 1600’s has held that possession is 9/10 of the law. It is telling. then, that these elections came so close in races where one candidate already held the reins of power. With just a bit bigger push, the election would have gone the other way.
What this means for Ukraine is that the world has an obligation to give it the push needed to get Russia out of Ukraine. That’s because the 1600’s law was based on natural law going back to Biblical times when the townsfolks rushed to David’s side and handed him the stones that finally killed the menacing Goliath.
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