Read a column by Gwynne Dyer, yesterday's paper. He believes the
 Ukraine crisis won't lead to WWIII. His theory is, nobody is
 going to push it that far, the last two world wars taught them
 the lesson, it's not worth it.

 As he said, "That is why, even as Russian tanks drive right up
 to Ukraine's eastern borders, and the Ukrainian army prepares to
 die in a fight it knows it would lose, nobody else in europe is
 getting ready for war. If the Russians want part or all of
 Ukraine, they can have it-and pay the long term price for taking
 it, which would be very high. But nothing in Eurpoe is worth
 blowing all of Europe up for."

 I wonder about that. I wonder if, maybe, he's got it backwards.
 I wonder if the result of doing nothing might not be what leads
 to the war nobody wants.

 We have long been told that Hitler might have been stopped,
 probably would have been stopped, if the other nations had
 stepped in with his first aggression against the Sudentenland,
 against Austria, against those who could not defend themselves.

 What makes anyone think Putin is any less than Hitler?

 When Obama declared he was pulling our troops out of Afghanistan
 and Iraq the Republicans ranted and raved about how no one would
 ever trust us, because we abandoned an ally. Yet the governments
 of Iraq and Afghanistan were never allies, they were client
 states and corrupt in the extreme. Their fight is internal, even
 the outside influences would be no threat at all if those
 governments had the support of the people.

 No matter what the status of the Ukraine and it's government,
 Russia is clearly an outside invader. Failing to come to their
 aid would be a clear sign to Putin that the West really is too
 weak to stop him. Not too militarily weak, on that we outweigh
 them in spade, but too weak morally.

 That may yet be the factor that gives us the war no one wants.



BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... No one can fix everything, everyone can contribute to fixing something.
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