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Six years ago, University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer made this prediction:
The West is leading Ukraine down the primrose path and the end result is Ukraine is going to get wrecked."
It seems prescient now, though no one, to my knowledge, has raised this salient point.
Exception made for your truly, who raised the issue of whether Ukraine could eventually prevail against the Red Army. We are all cheering for them, but they are for now seriously outgunned. If they cannot prevail, whatever are they doing? It's not a very fine line between seeking victory and seeking martyrdom.
3 comments:
Mahatma Ghandi
Nelson Mandela
Martin Luther King
George Washington and the Founding Fathers
even Abraham Lincoln (much maligned for the rights he trampled).
and uncounted more
All of these individuals represented a larger body politic, a national ethos or identity if you will. All Struggled against outsized odds; against opponents that had many material, numerical and incumbent advantages. All ultimately prevailed. All sacrificed much in the struggle. Some sacrificed all.
History will (and does) argue whether the legacy of these heroes was subsequently squandered in the glad times that followed; untouched and untempered by the flames of righteous struggle.
But there is no debating that when it mattered good men and women rose up in the face of immoral and despotic systems and said, "Hold, enough!"
"Better to die on your feet, than live on your knees." Aeschylus
The only real question is whether Ukraine has the right, before God and all nations, to have autonomy. If the answer is yes, then they really have no choice but continue the struggle. One can debate the pros/cons of how we got to this point, and the humanitarian tragedy that exists for the Ukrainian and Russian people both at this point. But to say they should just quit, while we walk as free men, is the worst sort of equivocation and moral cowardice.
Just my opinion, an observation, made from my knees in faith. I pray God intervenes to allow both countries and the individuals that lead them: wisdom, a way to step back from the edge and a path to peace.
Ukraine cannot "win" in the purely military sense of driving the Russian army back into Russia. That's just not going to happen without enough outside support to start WWIII.
I'm pretty sure Zelensky is smart enough not to want to be Ferdinand. The big question is whether the rest of the world - US idiots calling for no-fly zones come to mind - will force him into that role.
The best outcome is that Russia "loses", which is looking likely. The wildcard there is China.
Russia and Ukraine feed Europe and the Middle East. China's winter wheat was a disaster. The price of oil is not the only thing skyrocketing. July wheat nearly doubled on Tuesday (8/bushel on 22 Feb to 13 on 8 Mar); it has dropped down to "merely" 50% up since (10.50 today). China _must_ feed its people. Hungry people cause revolutions (see Arab Spring).
America had best hope this ends soon because our sanctimonious sanctioning is going to destroy our reserve currency status and suddenly $30,000,000,000,000,0000 becomes real money. It will happen, eventually, but nothing makes the wheels come off faster than sand in the gears, err, axles.
Who Wrecked Ukraine
USSR. Seventy-five years of misrule and mass murder will do that.
After reading “Where the West End,” I see the Ukraine never rose above being wrecked.
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