Friday, February 27, 2015
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Monday, February 23, 2015
Sunday, February 22, 2015
Friday, February 20, 2015
Tuesday, February 17, 2015
Monday, February 16, 2015
Very Disturbing News
When you read this you will understand why Obama refuses to say the words "radical Islam."..
I didn't originate this, but it checked out with Google and SnopesÙ‚€�
Did you know that we now have a Muslimآ government?
John Brennan, current head of the CIA converted to Islam while stationed in Saudi Arabia .
Obama's top advisor, Valerie Jarrett, is a Muslim who was born in Iran where her parents still live.
Hillary Clinton's top advisor, Huma Abedin is a Muslim, whose mother and brother are involved in the now outlawed Muslim Brotherhood inآ Egypt .
Assistant Secretary for Policy Development for Homeland Security, Arif Aikhan, is a Muslim.
Homeland Security Advisor, Mohammed Elibiary, is a Muslim.
Obama advisor and founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, Salam al-Marayati, is a Muslim.
Obama's Sharia Czar, Imam Mohamed Magid, of the Islamic Society of North America is a Muslim.
Advisory Council on Faith-Based Neighborhood Partnerships, Eboo Patel,Ø¢ is a Muslim.
And last but not least, our closet Muslim himself, Barack Hussein Obama.
It's questionable if Obama ever officially took the oath of office when he was sworn in. He didn't repeat the oath properly to defend our nation and our Constitution. Later the Democrats claimed he was given the oath again in private?
CIA director John Brennan took his oath on a copy of the Constitution, not a Bible.
Congressman, Keith Ellison took his oathآ on a copy of the Qur'an.
Congresswoman Michele Bachman was vilified and almost tarred and feathered by Democrats when she voiced her concern about Muslims taking over our government.
Considering all these appointments, it would explain why Obama and his minions are systematically destroying our nation, supporting radical Muslim groups worldwide, opening our southern border, and turning a blind eye to the genocide being perpetrated on Christians all over Africa and the Middle East.
The more damage Obama does, the more arrogant he's become!
Our nation and our government has been infiltrated by people who want to destroy us. It can only getآ worse!
If you fail to pass this one on, there's something wrong ... somewhere! If you don't pass this on, you're probably it.
|
Sunday, February 15, 2015
"American Sniper:" Targeting the Risks of Confronting Evil
11th Feb 2015
by Christopher Menzhuber
We are made to be incensed by evil when we see it, and our indifference contributes to its forward
progress. “Across the centuries, it is the drowsiness of the disciples that opens up possibilities for
the power of the Evil One. Such drowsiness deadens the soul, so that it remains undisturbed by
the power of the Evil One at work in the world and by all the injustice and suffering ravaging the
earth.” So wrote Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his 2011 book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week,
published by Ignatius Press.
Because it can be a daunting challenge to face evil and remain untouched by it, the call to confront
evil can result in a crisis. Evil by nature is so perverse and infectious that there is always the
danger it can lead even the most zealous do-gooder into a fog of confusion. This is the journey that
Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) faces in the film American Sniper, a movie directed by Clint
Eastwood and based on Kyle’s own memoirs chronicling his life as a Navy SEAL.
Young Chris Kyle (Cole Konis) appears to be the stuff from which good soldiers are made. Born
with a hearty disposition and a natural gift for marksmanship, he is angered by injustice and has
the courage to stand up to bullies. His Bible-reading father Wayne (Ben Reed) believes Chris has
been given the “gift of aggression.” (St. Thomas Aquinas might have characterized this trait
instead as an unusually large "irascible appetite," the passion that helps us overcome obstacles in
order to achieve the difficult good.) Building on this natural foundation, Wayne explains there are
three kinds of people in the world: Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. “We’re not raising sheep in this
family,” he declares with finality, and forbids Chris to become a wolf.
Chris Kyle’s love for his country, appetite for challenge, and desire to protect others is catalyzed
by the 1998 bombing of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which motivates him to
join the Navy SEALS. While the rigorous training washes out many would-be SEALS, it only
seems to hone Kyle’s natural disposition. “How are you feeling?” shouts one drill sergeant in the
middle of a torturous exercise. “I’m feeling dangerous,” Kyle grunts in response.But on his first tour in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, as Kyle provides sniper cover for Marines when
they go house to house searching for insurgents, he is faced with an evil neither his robust nature
nor his military training could prepare him for. He is forced to target a mother and her son
preparing to hurl a grenade at an oncoming Marine convoy. “That was an evil I ain’t never seen
before,” he remarks to another soldier.
As the days of his tours mount up and his kill count increases, so does his legendary status. “They
feel invincible with you up there,” one solider tells Kyle. But as the fighting wears on, stress
fractures begin to crack Kyle’s seemingly immutable character: His blood pressure rises, and
between tours he can’t shake the habit of feeling threatened whenever cars pass him on the
highway or a lawnmower starts up. Friends lost in battle and traumatic images of war build an
invisible wall between him and his wife Taya (Sienna Miller) and his growing family.
During Kyle’s third tour, an acute darkness begins to envelope him and his fellow soldiers, and the
balance they have been walking between defending America and avenging America begins to tip.
The movie conveys this transformation in an interesting way by subtly introducing The Punisher,
a graphic novel anti-hero who broke decisively from the Marvel hero universe by becoming one of
the first to kill his enemies out of vengeance rather than capture them.
The film first draws attention to one of the Marines reading a “Punisher” graphic novel. Then as
the toll of war increases on the Marines, the Punisher’s logo — a flattened skull — begins to appear
on the convoy vehicles. Gradually we see it emblazoned on the body armor of the Navy SEALS.
The Punisher’s vengeful perspective that the beleaguered soldiers adopt is articulated by one of
the Marines when he emotes after a friend is gravely wounded, “Lex Talionis… an eye for an eye!”
Their transformation sends the message that it is impossible to engage in war without being
affected by it. Simultaneously, Kyle’s Bible remains closed and unread as if to imply that the
Punisher’s vengeful attitude is incompatible with a full biblical understanding of justice.
Finally, even the “legendary” Kyle arrives at such a place of exhaustion where he admits he is
ready to “come home.” In a symbolic gesture, the movie has him drop his rifle in the dirt —
something his father had told him never to do — and jump on a convoy to escape in a sandstorm,
as if to say that everything he was formed to become has been challenged and confused by the fog
of war.
Men and women in the Armed Forces will often describe their work as a “vocation” or “calling,”
and that idea is very much on display in American Sniper. At his wedding, Kyle has smudges of
camouflage paint from training earlier that day, and war is announced in the middle of his
reception. It seems that with every moment of significance in his family life, a military obligation
arises to compete with it. The film conveys the truth about the sacrifices many soldiers make to
serve a greater good when Kyle explains to his wife, “They need my help now; we can wait.”
This film recognizes as noble the intentions of those who feel called to war in order to fight evil.
“Are you pissed off enough to be a Marine?” Kyle is asked by the recruiter. But it reflects the
Catholic idea that no person, no matter how strong their constitution or righteous their intention,
is made for war. War is always seen as a dysfunction accompanied by evil. This is perhaps what
American Sniper conveys better than anything: One unspeakably violent scene graphically
illustrates how war does not confine itself to combatants and affects innocents the worst.On the one hand then, it would seem there can be a legitimate call to war; on the other, war
always has evil effects. The juxtaposition of these seemingly irreconcilable elements brings us
back to the crisis: Are those “sheepdogs” who stand up to fight evil tragically bound to be infected
by it and perpetuate it? How could God be calling someone to that kind of fate? The film only hints
at an answer, being primarily focused upon the anti-war message that war tears families apart.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, director Clint Eastwood said about his film that the “biggest
anti-war statement” any film can make is to show “the fact of what [war] does to the family and
the people who have to go back into civilian life like Chris Kyle did.”
One cannot dispute that Chris Kyle saved lives. Between tours, Kyle meets a veteran who thanks
him for being a “hero” and for bringing him back to his little daughter. Kyle himself claims he is
willing to “justify to his creator” every one of the 160 killings he was credited with because “I was
just trying to protect my guys.” But after Kyle’s own crisis, a counselor helps him understand that
his desire to “save others” — the desire that drove him into darkness — could be expressed
differently by giving hope to wounded veterans. When one vet accurately shoots a target with
Kyle’s help, the vet triumphantly exclaims, “Who’s the legend now?” Expressing the high cost of
saving lives by means of taking lives, Kyle replies: “That’s a title you don’t want; trust me.” This
doesn’t suggest an answer to the dilemma of standing up to evil and becoming affected by it, but it
does offer a glimpse that perhaps there is more than one way to fight evil.
Our Catholic faith tells us God has to be present even in the midst of war. Somehow we have to
balance God’s involvement in war with the idea that God does not want war and takes no pleasure
in it. In short, God’s action remains a mystery too awesome to understand. American Sniper
acknowledges this in a scene at the beginning that can be used as an interpretive key for the
whole religious perspective: As the Kyle family is in church, the preacher notes how St. Paul had
to stand in judgment several times for his beliefs. “We don't see with God's eyes,” the preacher
explains. “One day, we will see with clarity.”
Catholics can take a step further beyond being simply confounded by the inscrutability of God’s
actions. Using the film’s analogy of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs, we can be reminded of one
other very important truth: We may be sheep, but we are not sheep without a Shepherd. Evil is
too powerful a thing for any person to face, no matter how strong they are. Pope Emeritus
Benedict XVI affirmed that evil needs to be confronted, but pointed out that it is Jesus Christ
alone who “encounters the majesty of death and rubs against the might of darkness, which it is his
task to wrestle with and overcome.” In Jesus Christ, we have a sheep led to slaughter, whose
humanity was “troubled” when he beheld death at the tomb of Lazarus. But in Jesus Christ we
also have the Good Shepherd, the champion who overcomes death, sin, and the devil.
“God himself ‘drinks the cup’ of every horror to the dregs and thereby restores justice through
the greatness of his love, which, through suffering, transforms the darkness,” writes Pope
Emeritus Benedict (232). If we are united with Jesus, then we are joined to the light that
consumes the darkness. That should be the final word and the good news for both the sheep and
the sheepdogs.
Christopher Menzhuber writes from Minnesota
by Christopher Menzhuber
We are made to be incensed by evil when we see it, and our indifference contributes to its forward
progress. “Across the centuries, it is the drowsiness of the disciples that opens up possibilities for
the power of the Evil One. Such drowsiness deadens the soul, so that it remains undisturbed by
the power of the Evil One at work in the world and by all the injustice and suffering ravaging the
earth.” So wrote Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his 2011 book Jesus of Nazareth: Holy Week,
published by Ignatius Press.
Because it can be a daunting challenge to face evil and remain untouched by it, the call to confront
evil can result in a crisis. Evil by nature is so perverse and infectious that there is always the
danger it can lead even the most zealous do-gooder into a fog of confusion. This is the journey that
Chris Kyle (Bradley Cooper) faces in the film American Sniper, a movie directed by Clint
Eastwood and based on Kyle’s own memoirs chronicling his life as a Navy SEAL.
Young Chris Kyle (Cole Konis) appears to be the stuff from which good soldiers are made. Born
with a hearty disposition and a natural gift for marksmanship, he is angered by injustice and has
the courage to stand up to bullies. His Bible-reading father Wayne (Ben Reed) believes Chris has
been given the “gift of aggression.” (St. Thomas Aquinas might have characterized this trait
instead as an unusually large "irascible appetite," the passion that helps us overcome obstacles in
order to achieve the difficult good.) Building on this natural foundation, Wayne explains there are
three kinds of people in the world: Sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. “We’re not raising sheep in this
family,” he declares with finality, and forbids Chris to become a wolf.
Chris Kyle’s love for his country, appetite for challenge, and desire to protect others is catalyzed
by the 1998 bombing of the American embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, which motivates him to
join the Navy SEALS. While the rigorous training washes out many would-be SEALS, it only
seems to hone Kyle’s natural disposition. “How are you feeling?” shouts one drill sergeant in the
middle of a torturous exercise. “I’m feeling dangerous,” Kyle grunts in response.But on his first tour in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, as Kyle provides sniper cover for Marines when
they go house to house searching for insurgents, he is faced with an evil neither his robust nature
nor his military training could prepare him for. He is forced to target a mother and her son
preparing to hurl a grenade at an oncoming Marine convoy. “That was an evil I ain’t never seen
before,” he remarks to another soldier.
As the days of his tours mount up and his kill count increases, so does his legendary status. “They
feel invincible with you up there,” one solider tells Kyle. But as the fighting wears on, stress
fractures begin to crack Kyle’s seemingly immutable character: His blood pressure rises, and
between tours he can’t shake the habit of feeling threatened whenever cars pass him on the
highway or a lawnmower starts up. Friends lost in battle and traumatic images of war build an
invisible wall between him and his wife Taya (Sienna Miller) and his growing family.
During Kyle’s third tour, an acute darkness begins to envelope him and his fellow soldiers, and the
balance they have been walking between defending America and avenging America begins to tip.
The movie conveys this transformation in an interesting way by subtly introducing The Punisher,
a graphic novel anti-hero who broke decisively from the Marvel hero universe by becoming one of
the first to kill his enemies out of vengeance rather than capture them.
The film first draws attention to one of the Marines reading a “Punisher” graphic novel. Then as
the toll of war increases on the Marines, the Punisher’s logo — a flattened skull — begins to appear
on the convoy vehicles. Gradually we see it emblazoned on the body armor of the Navy SEALS.
The Punisher’s vengeful perspective that the beleaguered soldiers adopt is articulated by one of
the Marines when he emotes after a friend is gravely wounded, “Lex Talionis… an eye for an eye!”
Their transformation sends the message that it is impossible to engage in war without being
affected by it. Simultaneously, Kyle’s Bible remains closed and unread as if to imply that the
Punisher’s vengeful attitude is incompatible with a full biblical understanding of justice.
Finally, even the “legendary” Kyle arrives at such a place of exhaustion where he admits he is
ready to “come home.” In a symbolic gesture, the movie has him drop his rifle in the dirt —
something his father had told him never to do — and jump on a convoy to escape in a sandstorm,
as if to say that everything he was formed to become has been challenged and confused by the fog
of war.
Men and women in the Armed Forces will often describe their work as a “vocation” or “calling,”
and that idea is very much on display in American Sniper. At his wedding, Kyle has smudges of
camouflage paint from training earlier that day, and war is announced in the middle of his
reception. It seems that with every moment of significance in his family life, a military obligation
arises to compete with it. The film conveys the truth about the sacrifices many soldiers make to
serve a greater good when Kyle explains to his wife, “They need my help now; we can wait.”
This film recognizes as noble the intentions of those who feel called to war in order to fight evil.
“Are you pissed off enough to be a Marine?” Kyle is asked by the recruiter. But it reflects the
Catholic idea that no person, no matter how strong their constitution or righteous their intention,
is made for war. War is always seen as a dysfunction accompanied by evil. This is perhaps what
American Sniper conveys better than anything: One unspeakably violent scene graphically
illustrates how war does not confine itself to combatants and affects innocents the worst.On the one hand then, it would seem there can be a legitimate call to war; on the other, war
always has evil effects. The juxtaposition of these seemingly irreconcilable elements brings us
back to the crisis: Are those “sheepdogs” who stand up to fight evil tragically bound to be infected
by it and perpetuate it? How could God be calling someone to that kind of fate? The film only hints
at an answer, being primarily focused upon the anti-war message that war tears families apart.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, director Clint Eastwood said about his film that the “biggest
anti-war statement” any film can make is to show “the fact of what [war] does to the family and
the people who have to go back into civilian life like Chris Kyle did.”
One cannot dispute that Chris Kyle saved lives. Between tours, Kyle meets a veteran who thanks
him for being a “hero” and for bringing him back to his little daughter. Kyle himself claims he is
willing to “justify to his creator” every one of the 160 killings he was credited with because “I was
just trying to protect my guys.” But after Kyle’s own crisis, a counselor helps him understand that
his desire to “save others” — the desire that drove him into darkness — could be expressed
differently by giving hope to wounded veterans. When one vet accurately shoots a target with
Kyle’s help, the vet triumphantly exclaims, “Who’s the legend now?” Expressing the high cost of
saving lives by means of taking lives, Kyle replies: “That’s a title you don’t want; trust me.” This
doesn’t suggest an answer to the dilemma of standing up to evil and becoming affected by it, but it
does offer a glimpse that perhaps there is more than one way to fight evil.
Our Catholic faith tells us God has to be present even in the midst of war. Somehow we have to
balance God’s involvement in war with the idea that God does not want war and takes no pleasure
in it. In short, God’s action remains a mystery too awesome to understand. American Sniper
acknowledges this in a scene at the beginning that can be used as an interpretive key for the
whole religious perspective: As the Kyle family is in church, the preacher notes how St. Paul had
to stand in judgment several times for his beliefs. “We don't see with God's eyes,” the preacher
explains. “One day, we will see with clarity.”
Catholics can take a step further beyond being simply confounded by the inscrutability of God’s
actions. Using the film’s analogy of sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs, we can be reminded of one
other very important truth: We may be sheep, but we are not sheep without a Shepherd. Evil is
too powerful a thing for any person to face, no matter how strong they are. Pope Emeritus
Benedict XVI affirmed that evil needs to be confronted, but pointed out that it is Jesus Christ
alone who “encounters the majesty of death and rubs against the might of darkness, which it is his
task to wrestle with and overcome.” In Jesus Christ, we have a sheep led to slaughter, whose
humanity was “troubled” when he beheld death at the tomb of Lazarus. But in Jesus Christ we
also have the Good Shepherd, the champion who overcomes death, sin, and the devil.
“God himself ‘drinks the cup’ of every horror to the dregs and thereby restores justice through
the greatness of his love, which, through suffering, transforms the darkness,” writes Pope
Emeritus Benedict (232). If we are united with Jesus, then we are joined to the light that
consumes the darkness. That should be the final word and the good news for both the sheep and
the sheepdogs.
Christopher Menzhuber writes from Minnesota
Friday, February 13, 2015
Wednesday, February 11, 2015
Monday, February 9, 2015
Army revokes Green Beret’s Silver Star for killing known enemy and bomb-maker
Army revokes Green Beret’s Silver Star for killing known enemy and bomb-maker
This is a HUGE crock of BS! ROE should be seek out, close with, and DESTROY period. Why are we fighting these savages "fair?" For some reason we are under the impression that the Geneva Convention applies here?
This is a HUGE crock of BS! ROE should be seek out, close with, and DESTROY period. Why are we fighting these savages "fair?" For some reason we are under the impression that the Geneva Convention applies here?
Friday, February 6, 2015
Thursday, February 5, 2015
Wednesday, February 4, 2015
U.S.-Russia Clash in Ukraine?
By Patrick J. Buchanan
Tuesday - February 2, 2015
Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of influence.
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow's red line, and they saw it as ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.
For President Obama is being goaded by Congress and the liberal interventionists in his party to send lethal weaponry to Kiev in its civil war with pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.
That war has already cost 5,000 lives -- soldiers, rebels, civilians. September's cease-fire in Minsk has broken down. The rebels have lately seized 200 added square miles, and directed artillery fire at Mariupol, a Black Sea port between Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea.
Late last year, Congress sent Obama a bill authorizing lethal aid to Kiev. He signed it. Now the New York Times reports that NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove favors military aid to Ukraine, as does Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. John Kerry and Gen. Martin Dempsey of the joint chiefs are said to be open to the idea.
A panel of eight former national security officials, chaired by Michele Flournoy, a potential Defense Secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration, has called for the U.S. to provide $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance drones, Humvees, and radar to locate the sources of artillery and missile fire.
Such an arms package would guarantee an escalation of the war, put the United States squarely in the middle, and force Vladimir Putin's hand.
Thus far, despite evidence of Russian advisers in Ukraine and claims of Russian tank presence, Putin denies that he has intervened. But if U.S. cargo planes start arriving in Kiev with Javelin anti-tank missiles, Putin would face several choices.
He could back down, abandon the rebels, and be seen as a bully who, despite his bluster, does not stand up for Russians everywhere.
More in character, he could take U.S. intervention as a challenge and send in armor and artillery to enable the rebels to consolidate their gains, then warn Kiev that, rather than see the rebels routed, Moscow will intervene militarily.
Or Putin could order in the Russian army before U.S. weapons arrive, capture Mariupol, establish a land bridge to Crimea, and then tell Kiev he is ready to negotiate.
What would we do then? Send U.S. advisers to fight alongside the Ukrainians, as the war escalates and the casualties mount? Send U.S. warships into the Black Sea?
Have we thought this through, as we did not think through what would happen if we brought down Saddam, Gadhafi and Mubarak?
America has never had a vital interest in Crimea or the Donbass worth risking a military clash with Russia. And we do not have the military ability to intervene and drive out the Russian army, unless we are prepared for a larger war and the potential devastation of the Ukraine.
What would Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan think of an American president willing to risk military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia over two provinces in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow had ruled from the time of Catherine the Great?
What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy and a disaster. And we are in part responsible, having egged on the Maidan coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government.
But a greater disaster looms if we get ourselves embroiled in Ukraine's civil war. We would face, first, the near certainty of defeat for our allies, if not ourselves. Second, we would push Moscow further outside Europe and the West, leaving her with no alternative but to deepen ties to a rising China.
Given the economic crisis in Russia and the basket case Ukraine is already, how do we think a larger and wider war would leave both nations?
Alarmists say we cannot let Putin's annexation of Crimea stand. We cannot let Luhansk and Donetsk become a pro-Russian enclave in Ukraine, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia or the Transdniester republic.
But no one ever thought these enclaves that emerged from the ethnic decomposition of the Soviet Union were worth a conflict with Russia. When did Luhansk and Donetsk become so?
Rather than becoming a co-belligerent in this civil war that is not our war, why not have the United States assume the role of the honest broker who brings it to an end. Isn't that how real peace prizes are won?
Among Cold War presidents, from Truman to Bush I, there was an unwritten rule: Do not challenge Moscow in its Central and Eastern Europe sphere of influence.
In crises over Berlin in 1948 and 1961, the Hungarian Revolution in 1956 and the Warsaw Pact invasion of Prague in 1968, U.S. forces in Europe stayed in their barracks.
We saw the Elbe as Moscow's red line, and they saw it as ours.
While Reagan sent weapons to anti-Communist rebels in Angola, Nicaragua and Afghanistan, to the heroic Poles of Gdansk he sent only mimeograph machines.
That Cold War caution and prudence may be at an end.
For President Obama is being goaded by Congress and the liberal interventionists in his party to send lethal weaponry to Kiev in its civil war with pro-Russian rebels in Donetsk and Luhansk.
That war has already cost 5,000 lives -- soldiers, rebels, civilians. September's cease-fire in Minsk has broken down. The rebels have lately seized 200 added square miles, and directed artillery fire at Mariupol, a Black Sea port between Donetsk and Luhansk and Crimea.
Late last year, Congress sent Obama a bill authorizing lethal aid to Kiev. He signed it. Now the New York Times reports that NATO Commander Gen. Philip Breedlove favors military aid to Ukraine, as does Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel. John Kerry and Gen. Martin Dempsey of the joint chiefs are said to be open to the idea.
A panel of eight former national security officials, chaired by Michele Flournoy, a potential Defense Secretary in a Hillary Clinton administration, has called for the U.S. to provide $3 billion in military aid to Ukraine, including anti-tank missiles, reconnaissance drones, Humvees, and radar to locate the sources of artillery and missile fire.
Such an arms package would guarantee an escalation of the war, put the United States squarely in the middle, and force Vladimir Putin's hand.
Thus far, despite evidence of Russian advisers in Ukraine and claims of Russian tank presence, Putin denies that he has intervened. But if U.S. cargo planes start arriving in Kiev with Javelin anti-tank missiles, Putin would face several choices.
He could back down, abandon the rebels, and be seen as a bully who, despite his bluster, does not stand up for Russians everywhere.
More in character, he could take U.S. intervention as a challenge and send in armor and artillery to enable the rebels to consolidate their gains, then warn Kiev that, rather than see the rebels routed, Moscow will intervene militarily.
Or Putin could order in the Russian army before U.S. weapons arrive, capture Mariupol, establish a land bridge to Crimea, and then tell Kiev he is ready to negotiate.
What would we do then? Send U.S. advisers to fight alongside the Ukrainians, as the war escalates and the casualties mount? Send U.S. warships into the Black Sea?
Have we thought this through, as we did not think through what would happen if we brought down Saddam, Gadhafi and Mubarak?
America has never had a vital interest in Crimea or the Donbass worth risking a military clash with Russia. And we do not have the military ability to intervene and drive out the Russian army, unless we are prepared for a larger war and the potential devastation of the Ukraine.
What would Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon or Reagan think of an American president willing to risk military conflict with a nuclear-armed Russia over two provinces in southeastern Ukraine that Moscow had ruled from the time of Catherine the Great?
What is happening in Ukraine is a tragedy and a disaster. And we are in part responsible, having egged on the Maidan coup that overthrew the elected pro-Russian government.
But a greater disaster looms if we get ourselves embroiled in Ukraine's civil war. We would face, first, the near certainty of defeat for our allies, if not ourselves. Second, we would push Moscow further outside Europe and the West, leaving her with no alternative but to deepen ties to a rising China.
Given the economic crisis in Russia and the basket case Ukraine is already, how do we think a larger and wider war would leave both nations?
Alarmists say we cannot let Putin's annexation of Crimea stand. We cannot let Luhansk and Donetsk become a pro-Russian enclave in Ukraine, like Abkhazia, South Ossetia or the Transdniester republic.
But no one ever thought these enclaves that emerged from the ethnic decomposition of the Soviet Union were worth a conflict with Russia. When did Luhansk and Donetsk become so?
Rather than becoming a co-belligerent in this civil war that is not our war, why not have the United States assume the role of the honest broker who brings it to an end. Isn't that how real peace prizes are won?
Tuesday, February 3, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
Sunday, February 1, 2015
America’s October Worries
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