02-25-2022, 02:23 AM
There should be enough veterans of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia and Viet Nam (a partial list) in the U.S. at least that no such forgetfulness should exist here. They are a minority, but the memory and experience is out there. But it seems like experience of war is something most veterans want to forget and the last thing a veteran wants to share, at least with those who haven't shared the experience.
Every war is a special case and Putin's invasion of the Ukraine was probably inevitable. I'm not justifying it, but Thomas Friedman pointed out in his column a few days ago in the NY Times that the West made its own mistakes by pushing NATO up to the very borders of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. That did a lot (again, paraphrasing Friedman) to generate the nationalism in Russia that has given Putin the backing he needed to make himself another Russian autocrat, practically the only form of government that the Russians have ever known.
I am more fearful of the price the Ukrainians will now pay for their brief independence than that Putin will roll into Europe.
And are we willing to go nuclear to defend Eastern Europe? Because I think we'd have to.
I am old enough to remember doing the duck and cover drills in elementary school. Frightening to think we are back to thinking in those terms again.
Every war is a special case and Putin's invasion of the Ukraine was probably inevitable. I'm not justifying it, but Thomas Friedman pointed out in his column a few days ago in the NY Times that the West made its own mistakes by pushing NATO up to the very borders of Russia after the Soviet Union collapsed. That did a lot (again, paraphrasing Friedman) to generate the nationalism in Russia that has given Putin the backing he needed to make himself another Russian autocrat, practically the only form of government that the Russians have ever known.
I am more fearful of the price the Ukrainians will now pay for their brief independence than that Putin will roll into Europe.
And are we willing to go nuclear to defend Eastern Europe? Because I think we'd have to.
I am old enough to remember doing the duck and cover drills in elementary school. Frightening to think we are back to thinking in those terms again.