Month: March 2022

Zelenskyy’s Choice

Stalemate

Russian President Vladimir Putin hasn’t said a word.  But his Deputy Defense Minister re-wrote the history of their ill-conceived invasion of Ukraine.  He claimed that the Russian attacks were simply to preserve the “independent” sovereignty of the eastern Ukrainian Donbas region, allowing them to break away.  It’s not where this invasion started, but it is a “fig-leaf” to cover the naked aggression of Putin, and more importantly, the abject failure of the “mighty” Russian Army to defeat the Ukrainians.  

So the Ukraine War has reached a bloody stalemate.  Russia is unable to capture Kyiv, or Kharkiv, or even Mariupol.  Their encircling movements are stymied by Ukrainian forces, and by Ukrainian civilians who simply won’t quit.  But those same civilians are bearing the brunt of the attack now.  Since the Russians can’t take the cities, they are sitting back and blowing the Hell out of them.  Stores, apartment blocks, neighborhoods, theatres, schools and hospitals are all “fair game” for the Russian artillery, missiles, and bombs.   

Negotiations

Ukrainian and Russian representatives are sitting across the table from each other in Istanbul.  President Erdogan of Turkey is hosting the talks, aimed at reaching some sort of agreement to end the bloodshed.  But there’s nothing collegial about the discussions.  The Russians and Ukrainians won’t shake hands, and the Ukrainians have been warned not to eat or drink or even touch the tables.  The fear of Russian poisoning is that strong.

And there’s a real possibility that the negotiations are just another Putin “fig leaf”, covering a needed regrouping and resupply of Russian columns.  Give it a few weeks, and a reinvigorated Russian Army may once again begin marching towards the city centers.  Maneuvering heavy equipment in the verdant fields of Ukraine in the spring mud has trapped too many armies of the past.  Time may be on Russia’s side.

 The Ukrainians are well aware of that possibility.  They too are regrouping and resupplying, trying to get as much military materiel from the NATO nations as possible in preparation for a second Russian offensive, especially as spring ends and the fields dry out.  

What Deal

Frankly, the less likely scenario is that the Russians are really at the table to negotiate, and that the Deputy Defense Minister is actually speaking for Vladimir Putin himself. But it’s possible. Perhaps Putin is looking for the “exit ramp” from his “adventure” in Ukraine, a way to staunch the Russian bleeding and death.  And more significantly for Putin, a way to maintain the sale of Russian natural gas and oil products to Europe, the last financial lifeline left for the Russian economy.

But if Russia is really looking to end the war, what would they be willing to take to declare victory and get out?  And just as importantly, after the amazing and gallant defense of his country, what is President Zelenskyy of Ukraine will to give?

The loss of Ukrainian provinces in the Donbas region, and the Russian “unification” of the Black Sea coastline (they already control most of it); with a Ukrainian promise not to join NATO, is likely the Russian “starting” position.  Essentially, it says to Zelenskyy:  give Russians what they already have, and promise not to make an alliance to defend yourself from them again.  Then the Russian forces will withdraw from the other parts of Ukraine.

What Ukraine Earned

It’s not a good result from an amazing Ukrainian defense.  But the internal pressure on President Zelenskyy must be intense.  Millions of Ukrainian citizens have fled the country.  Millions more are in the crosshairs of Russian weaponry.  More than a hundred thousand are trapped in Mariupol, starving in the basements and bomb shelters, with no way out of the destruction.  

So maybe Zelenskyy responds with an agreement not to join NATO, but retaining the ability to sign mutual defense pacts with the United States or Germany.  Ukraine may seek the economic protection of the European Union rather than the military defense of NATO.  And maybe there’s some arrangement for “autonomy” of the Donbas, short of independence.  Perhaps even some Russian reparations for the damage done in the cities.  After all, the Russian ruble is hardly worth the paper it’s printed on, there’s plenty to give away.

It’s not likely that any of this is important.  Odds are, Putin is simply buying some time to regroup.  His political position may depend on total victory in Ukraine, regardless of the cost in Russian blood and treasure.  But, if Putin is looking for the “off ramp”, it is really Zelenskyy’s choice what happens next.

Essays on the War in Ukraine

Out-Sourcing the Law

The Law

Our governments make laws.  It is a core function; making rules for how our society works.  My city of Pataskala just raised the speed limit on a Mink Street from 35 MPH to 45MPH (it’s about time).  The ordinance was passed, and the signs will be changed. Our local police department will enforce the new limits, just like they enforced the old ones.

Some laws, like the higher speed limit, are common sense.  There’s only a couple of houses in the area, otherwise it’s a “country road”.   Others are more politically contentious. Ohio just passed a law allowing any citizen (not under felony restriction) to carry a concealed weapon.  No license, no classes: head to the gun store (or Vance Outdoors) and plunk down your cash. Once you pass the instant background check, you’re “packing” a gun.  And if you do something illegal with that gun, the police and the courts will enforce those laws.

Enforcement

But there is a new legislative trend in the United States, that deals with some of the most fractious issues of our times.  The legislature passes a law, just like every other that regulates our behavior.  But rather than the government enforcing the law through police or civil fines, the enforcement is “outsourced”.  Instead of making violation a misdemeanor or felony, punishable by community control or fines or prison; these laws put the “violator” at risk for civil suit for any other citizen.  

So instead of facing a court to dispense criminal justice; some other citizen, who might not have any direct relation to what you did, is empowered to sue. An action violates the law; it is prima facie evidence of “guilt”.  The penalty is to lose the suit and pay “compensation” in the form of civil penalty and court fees; a cash amount, to the winner.

In this way the “state”, can pass a law and not be responsible for enforcing it.   The other “citizens” of the state, and even of other states, become the “enforcers” and the civil courts become the venue for dispensing punishment.  

Controversy without Consequences

Frankly, most of the laws using this novel concept of enforcement are coming from the conservative right.  The most familiar: the Texas law limiting abortions to six weeks, and the new Florida law banning any discussion of gender issues in primary classes.  But there are proposals in California to ban assault weapons using the same enforcement process, so it’s not all “one side” or the other.  

Today’s essay isn’t about the “Don’t Say Gay” law or why assault weapons should be banned.  It’s the process of enforcing these laws that gives me serious concerns.

Vigilante Justice

This concept creates a whole new level of vigilantism. It’s a governing state like the Soviet Union of old, when neighbors spied on their neighbors to find failures to live up to Communist ideals. And it begs for “organizations” to come in and profit by becoming the “enforcement agency”. Private businesses with the bankroll to file multiple suits, can sue and collect the “fees” from transgressors.  

It’s kind of like the companies that contract for red light camera enforcement.  They put up the cameras, they watch the videos, they send the tickets out and they take their cut of the fines.  But at least the tickets still went through the regular traffic court process, where drivers could dispute them.

In these “outsourced” laws, the government essentially washes their hands of the matter.  It becomes an issue for the civil courts, like a property dispute in the neighborhood.

Dodging the Fed

Some of the attraction for “civilian enforcement” is that it is more difficult for the Federal Courts to rule on their Constitutionality.   When “the government” enforces a law that violates a Constitutional right, there is a direct cause of action in the Federal Courts.  For example, when Ohio passed a “heartbeat bill” restricting abortions to before a fetal heartbeat could be detected, the Federal Courts immediately prevented enforcement.  But these “outsourced” laws are more difficult to bring to the Federal bar, since the state government is not involved in  “enforcement”.

There are other similar situations in the law today.  There is a group out of Wisconsin, the “Freedom from Religion Foundation”, that acts as an “enforcer” towards public schools that cross the First Amendment “religious line”.  A typical case, is one where the school allows the Ten Commandments to be displayed in the lobby of the high school, or where school authorities lead a prayer before graduation.  But there are a couple of critical differences between these “enforcement” activities, and “outsourced” laws.

First of all, the “Freedom from Religion Foundation” has to have a “client” with the legal standing to sue in that particular school district.  And, rather than sue for money, these suits are usually for “specific performance”: the school takes down the display or skips the prayer before the ceremony.  

Everyone has Standing

But the “outsourced” laws give EVERYONE standing to file suit.  A woman has an abortion after six weeks in Texas, everyone in the country has the “right” to sue.  A second grade teacher tries to explain why Bobby has a Mommy and Daddy, and Johnny has a Mommy and Mommy, and we all have “standing” in Florida court.  

It creates an “unlimited class” of folks with standing to sue, and a slam-dunk case to win.  It becomes “profitable” to become these “law enforcers”.  

It’s not what the American legal system is about.  Pitting citizen against citizen to do the job that the legislature is afraid to do (or to avoid Federal oversight) is just wrong.  It really doesn’t matter what issue were discussing, or which side you take.  If Florida really believes it should keep the teacher from talking to primary kids about “gender”, then the Florida legislature and Governor should enforce it themselves.  The same with Texas and abortions, and California and assault weapons.

We pass the buck enough.

The Gaffe

Biden’s Mouth

Joe Biden – he’s  legendary.  He’s been “gaffing”, saying surprising and sometimes extraordinary things in the middle of more “mundane” moments, for decades.  Up until this week, the most famous Biden gaffe was the “hot mic” whisper to then President Barack Obama at the passage of the Affordable Care Act: “This is a big f**king deal!!”.  And there’s even a “top ten” list of Biden’s gaffes, going back to 1987 (Time).

Some critics claim that it’s now some kind of dementia, a loss of control in the near-eighty year old man.  But the reality is, if this is dementia, then he’s been demented for the last half-century.  And supporters recognize that Biden has struggled with a stuttering disability throughout his life, and sometimes in that struggle – things slip out.  Maybe they’re right about “slips”, or maybe the gaffes are just a reflection of his inner thoughts.  

Truth Speaks

I think Biden is of sound mind, and knows full well what he’s saying.  He uses his “gaffes” to say the things he’s “not supposed to say”.  The Affordable Care Act was a “big f**king deal”.  So this weekend in a dramatic speech in Warsaw, the President laid out the case for world democracies to stand up to Russia.  He talked about the fate of the refugees now leaving Ukraine, and the terrible destruction of cities and civilians throughout that nation.  And Biden ended by saying about Vladimir Putin, “…for God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”.  

You could feel the oxygen get sucked out of  seventh floor of the US State Department headquarters in Foggy Bottom.  The President of the United States violated one of the premier rules of diplomacy:  never call for “regime change”.  And there are good reasons for that.  Once you say the “King must die”, then it’s going to be even harder to negotiate a peace with that “King” later on.  It’s the reason we didn’t bomb the Japanese Emperor’s Palace in World War II.  If we killed the Emperor, who would have the authority to surrender to us?  

Return to Normalcy

And the world (outside of Ukraine) looks to an end to the conflict, and a return to normalcy when Russia is among the “civilized” nations of the world.  Besides, Russian natural gas is a big part of the European economy.  How can we get back to normal if the leader of the free world, the President of the United States, calls for the removal of the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin?

The question Joe Biden poses is a simple one.  When a world leader starts a war of conquest that has sent ten million people from their homes, destroyed cities, and ultimately will cause the deaths of a hundred thousand people or more; how do we go “back to normal”?  What price is going to be paid for the war crimes of the Russian invasion, by the man who is directly responsible for those acts? 

Even if Putin  withdrew his tanks and stopped his bombings today, does the world go “back to normal” tomorrow?  I hope not, and I hope that world doesn’t think so either.  Joe Biden is speaking for us all when he says – “…this man cannot remain in power”.  

Consequences

This doesn’t mean we are sending a cruise missile to destroy the Kremlin.  And it doesn’t mean that the US President is calling for revolution in Russia.  But is does point out the obvious:  the world changed when the tanks went across the Ukrainian border and the first cruise missiles struck the Baba Yar Memorial in downtown Kyiv.  Being the leader of a major world power like Russia requires responsibility, and the actions that leader takes have consequences.  If the Russian people can’t hold Putin to account for those actions, then the rest of the world must.

We are already doing so.  The sanctions have wrecked the Russian economy.  The ruble was worth more than $.20 a few months ago, today it is worth less than a penny.  In the next several months, the last financial lifeline, the natural gas lines from Russia into Europe, will be replaced from US sources.  All of Russia will suffer for the singular decisions made by their authoritarian leader.

Responsibility

President Biden, in his Warsaw “gaffe”, has put the responsibility directly where it belongs.  Vladimir Putin directed this invasion, and bears complete responsibility for the results.  If he is not held personally liable, then, in the end, the world somehow white washes the destruction and the death.  

Biden spoke for every common man in the civilized world when he said that Putin cannot remain in power.  He told Putin that he cannot use the veneer of “diplomatic immunity” to commit war crimes.  And, in that brief phrase, he told the world that we cannot “go back to normal” just because the shooting stops in Ukraine.

And that’s no mistake, no gaffe.  It’s a big deal.

Ukraine Crisis

Putin’s Choice

Changing Strategy

The Associated Press reported this morning that Russia “may” change strategy in Ukraine. The month long invasion is stalled: the divisions surrounding Kyiv seem unable to close in on the city and are actually being pushed back from the northwestern suburbs. And while Russian long-range artillery, missiles and air attacks are still laying waste to civilian targets, killing thousands; Ukraine shows no signs of surrender. Even the hundred thousand starving in Mariupol refuse to give up.

The AP speculation comes from the Russian Defense Minister who changed “the message” from Moscow. Instead of “de-Nazifying” all of Ukraine, all of a sudden he speaks of “consolidating” the Eastern Provinces of Donbas as “independent” of Ukraine and continuing to control the critical naval bases in Crimea. In short, Russia is talking about keeping what they already had, before the tanks rolled across the borders and the missiles attacked civilian targets.

But one man speaking from Moscow is NOT a change in strategy, unless that one man is Vladimir Putin. So there’s nothing certain for Russian forces in Ukraine. What is certain: Ukrainian resistance has embarrassed the “second greatest” power in the world. They did not retreat, they did not fold, and the Russian Army is faced with many thousands of soldiers killed and wounded, for little gained.

Russian History

Those facts are not lost on Putin.  He has only to look back sixty years into Russian history to foresee his future.  In 1962, the Premier of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, determined to counter US nuclear weapons in Turkey by placing Soviet missiles in Cuba.  The technical reason was a request for mutual defense from the Cuban government.  Cuban leader Fidel Castro was fresh off a US sponsored invasion at the Bay of Pigs, an attack that failed miserably and left the new Kennedy Administration looking incompetent and weak. 

Khrushchev followed up with massive military aid to Cuba, and secret development of missile launch sites on the Island.  American U-2 spy planes revealed those sites to the Kennedy government, and the young President was faced with a dilemma.  No US President could allow hostile nuclear weapons ninety miles off the coast.  But attacks on the missile sites were guaranteed to cause Soviet casualties, and could trigger a nuclear launch, and World War III.

Missile Crisis

The resulting confrontation is known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.  The world teetered on the brink of nuclear disaster, as US Naval ships and Soviet submarines were head-to-head in the Caribbean.  Premier Khrushchev realized he had “overreached”, and while the ultimate solution included removing the US missiles from Turkey, it was the public removal of the missile bases from Cuba that became the headlines.  The Soviets were defeated and worse, humiliated on the world stage.  Kennedy out-maneuvered the Soviet leader.

Both Kennedy and Khrushchev would be out of power within two years.  Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in November of 1963.  His assassin had rumored connections to the Cuban government.  Khrushchev was removed from office at gunpoint by the senior Soviet leadership in October of 1964.  There were multiple reasons for the ouster, but his failure in the Cuban Missile Crisis loomed large.  He spent the remaining seven years of his life isolated in a country “dacha”, living on 400 Rubles a month ($1300). 

The Cost of Adventure

Putin is the authoritarian leader of Russia, just as Khrushchev was in 1962.  He led his nation into a military “adventure” in Ukraine that was only going to last a couple weeks.  Now more than a month later, that invasion cost thousands of Russian soldiers lives, the destruction of the Russian economy, and caused the re-vitalization of the NATO alliance against Russia.  At this point, Putin’s “adventure” has weakened Russia in almost every category. It’s become his Cuban Missile Crisis.

It is possible that Putin recognizes the position he is in, and will cut his losses in Ukraine.  But it is just as possible that he will “double-down” on his Ukrainian strategy.  NATO has made the boundaries fairly clear:  no chemical or nuclear weapons, no attacks outside of the boundaries of Ukraine – and NATO will not directly intervene.  And the current humiliation of the Russian military may not be something that Putin can “live” with – both in principle, and perhaps, in reality.  He may not have a political choice to withdraw.

Without a Fight

Is the Defense Minister’s message signaling a crack in Russian leadership?  Or is it just another feint, another layer of propaganda to cover the mass destruction of the civilian population of Ukraine?  And, if it’s a valid proposition, will President Zelenskyy of Ukraine accept the loss of the Donbas and Crimea as a price for peace?

Ukraine is winning against the Russian invasion, even though the price of victory is extremely high. Perhaps they too will “double-down”, and demand that the territories “detached” in 2014 return to Ukrainian control. It’s difficult to imagine that Putin could swallow such a political humiliation, or survive it.

His “dacha”, more of a palace, is located in Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea, just a few hundred miles from the battle lines today.  But it’s hard to see that the former KGB officer would accept involuntary retirement there without a fight.

Essay on the Ukraine Crisis

We Weren’t Looking

This Week

It was a busy week.  Putin’s War in Ukraine got uglier.  The Russian losses on the battlefield were paid for with Ukrainian civilian losses.  We watched cities like Mariupol leveled, blocks of apartments and office buildings literally nothing but rubble.  The Ukrainians continued their demands for more aid and more action from the NATO countries.  They earned the right to be heard with their successes on the ground, and their sacrifices in the cities.  And President Biden weighed how far the United States could go without triggering World War III, or whether, as President Zelenskyy stated, it’s already begun.

Back in Washington, the first Black woman was nominated to a seat in the United States Supreme Court.  The Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings with incredibly moving oratory about this moment in history.  But those hearings also demonstrated the depths some are willing to go to further their political careers, and the inherent racism that still exists.  Two steps forward – a Black woman on the Supreme Court.  One step back – the fact that she might have empathy for those who stand before the Court is explained as a failing, and reason why her nomination should be denied.

And finally, the United States lost a great patriot, a woman who stood against the growing Authoritarianism in the world.  Madeleine Albright broke the “glass ceiling” as the first woman to become US Secretary of State under President Clinton, and mentored an entire generation of American Foreign Service diplomats.  Her efforts to maintain democracy will be sorely missed.

So it was easy to miss two important advances in the investigation of the January 6th Insurrection. 

Ongoing Crime

The first was from a major figure in the actual rally that preceded the attack on the Capitol.  Congressman Mo Brooks of Alabama spoke at the rally. “Are you willing to do what it takes to fight for America!” Brooks yelled before telling rally attendees to “carry the message to Capitol Hill” and that “the fight begins today.”  He was so ready for a fight, he himself was wearing body armor.  His Congressional staff was part of the organizers of the January 6th events – ostensibly before the Insurrection itself.

Brooks did everything he could to overturn the 2020 results in the months after the election, and keep Trump in office.  Trump “returned the favor” by withdrawing his endorsement Brooks for the Senate seat from Alabama last week.  Brooks’ entire campaign was based around his MAGA connections and the Trump endorsement, so the flip-flop was a body blow.  

Brooks revealed why the endorsement was withdrawn.  In September of 2021, nine months after the inauguration of Joe Biden, Trump asked Brooks to have Congress “…overturn the (2020) election results and re-install Trump as President”.  Brooks told Trump there is no Constitutional method of doing that, once the Electoral votes were certified – but Trump demanded it anyway.  It was the cost of his endorsement.

The “bottom line” of this story:  Trump continues to try to overthrow the elected President of the United States.  It didn’t end on January 6th, or 20th – that sedition continues today.

The Justice’s Wife

Ginni Thomas has been a conservative activist for a quarter-century.  In the months after the 2020 election, she was active in the movement to overturn the election results.  She sent dozens of text messages to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, suggesting ways to continue the “battle” to maintain Trump in office.  Thomas completely “bought in” to the “Stop the Steal” theories put forth by Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell.  She was constantly sending advice and support to Meadows, declaring that Meadows should “…do anything to overturn the election”.  

Her husband is the Senior Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Clarence Thomas.  In spite of his wife’s deep involvement in the events of January 6th (she was in attendance at the rally, though she says she did not go to the Capitol), Thomas was the sole dissenting vote on the January 6th Committee’s attempt to get documents for their investigation.  There are no set rules requiring Justices of the Supreme Court to recuse themselves from cases where they have personal involvement, each Justice decides for themselves.  But it would seem that Ginni Thomas’s intimate participation would require him to withdraw.  He did not.

Not only does this raise questions about Justice Thomas’s ethic, but it also demonstrates how deeply the “Stop the Steal” movement was inculcated in the Republican and conservative leadership.  The January 6th Committee is preparing for public hearings, to lay out the evidence they have found of the planning and execution of the Insurrection.  It will be difficult to find a time when the events of the world won’t overwhelm their message.  

But we still need to listen.  For some, the Insurrection isn’t over.

Dear Judge Jackson:

Congratulations on your nomination to become a Justice of the United States Supreme Court.  There is no higher honor our nation can bestow on an attorney and judge.  And there is no one more deserving of that honor than you.  I cannot say it better than Senator Booker did yesterday; you have earned this appointment in every single way. (Readers:  if you want to be uplifted – take the time to watch Senator Booker’s statement to Judge Jackson). I am so proud that I live in a nation that in my lifetime has come so far, from Jim Crow Laws to the nomination of a Black woman to the Supreme Court.  We are, in Madison’s words, becoming “more perfect”. 

And I guess it should come as no surprise that that “perfecting” process generates opposition and even hate. We saw it in sports, from Jesse Owens to Jackie Robinson, Mohammad Ali to Hank Aaron. As each changed the world for the better, they were confronted by hate along the way.  They were transformative figures in American history.  So are you.

What really bothers me though, is the “jack-assery”, as Republican Senator Ben Sasse put it.  There are several Senators who have tried to make your nomination hearing a stage for their political future, or use it for retribution for perceived “wrongs” of the Trump years.  In doing so they had to search for some “flaws” to attack.  They tried to make it sound like you don’t “care” about child pornography, as if they were against it but you were somehow in favor.  Of course, that’s not true. You handled their blatant grandstanding with poise and grace and patience beyond belief. 

I don’t speak for the “American people”, I just speak for this one citizen.  But as a citizen of the United States, I apologize.  What should be a legitimate exploration of legal views, became a spectacle for political gain. I am embarrassed for our country that you (and we) were put through that “jack-assery”.  And even in that, I am also so proud of your courage to sit through it all.  A lesser person would have “taken the bait” and tried to lash back.

I’m sure you look forward to the end of the hearing process.  I am excited to see your hand raised, swearing once again to “…support and defend the Constitution”, and to “…administer justice without respect to persons, and do equal right to the poor and rich…”.  And even more, I look forward to seeing your work on the Court, in the majority and minority.  Your opinions will add a whole new texture to the American legal process.

Recently there have been times when it was easy to not love America.  But you:  your career, your legal acumen, and your potential to add to our Nation’s History; reaffirms our reason to love America.  Thank you for your service, and congratulations again.

Day One

Senators Hard On Kiddy Porn

Listen, child pornography is bad.  It’s hard to imagine there’s a “political issue” about children used in pornography. There is no “affirmative” side.  But then there’s Josh Hawley, Senator from Missouri with Stanford undergraduate and Yale Law degrees. He seems to think that he’s on “one side”, and Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson (Harvard undergraduate and Law) is on the other.  

This isn’t an issue.  Judge Jackson is as opposed to child pornography as Hawley. But the Senator thinks he can “catch” the Judge as “soft on kiddy porn”.   His case in point, an eighteen year old high school kid who collected enormous amounts of child pornography on his computer.   Judge Jackson sentenced him to three months in Federal Prison (as an eighteen year old), then decades of community controls and sanctions.  But Senator Hawley thinks she went too easy on him, and is trying to score political points.

Hawley isn’t the only one stuck on child pornography.  Senators Cotton and Cruz are also “concerned” about where the future Justice stands.  And while her record shows, that she is as abhorrent of children being used for pornography as anyone, it’s not going to be enough.

Why?

Paybacks and the Presidency

Because it’s the only “wedge” these Republicans can find to try to attack her nomination.  And attack they must.  They have to prove to the future Republican voters of the 2024 Presidential election that they are on the “right” (get it?) side.  And they, along with their comrades-in-hurt Lindsey Graham and Chuck Grassley, want “payback”.  Payback for Democrats fighting tooth-and-nail against Brett Kavanaugh, and Amy Coney Barrett, the last two Trump appointees. 

Child pornography is a legal issue, and Judge Jackson’s long record is “fair game”, I guess.  But Lindsey Graham demanding that Judge Jackson rate her Christianity on a “scale of 1 to 10”. That would get any “normal” job interview thrown right to the Human Relations department.  Graham doesn’t really care about Jackson’s faith.  He is getting his “payback” for the Amy Coney Barrett hearings. That’s when questions arose about her adherence to a particularly extreme Christian religious sect – far different than Jackson’s “mainstream” Christianity.  But Graham too must score his “points”.  

The Winner

So who was the winner of the Jackson’s first day (and night) of nomination hearings?  Judge Jackson, the legal scholar who will become the first Black woman on the Supreme Court.  She parried with the Senators, carefully keeping her cool even when questioned about whether a school where she serves on the board teaches that babies are born “biased”.  Senator Cruz made sure that the other Republican “wedge” – the erroneously named “Critical Race Theory” issue – was placed in front of the first Black woman to be nominated for the Court.

Ketanji Brown Jackson echoes Jackie Robinson, the first Black man to play in major league baseball.  When the Brooklyn Dodgers brought Robinson “up” to the team, it wasn’t just because of his skills on the ballfield. Robinson, a UCLA grad (with varsity letters in four sports) and 2nd Lieutenant in the World War II US Army, was able to keep his cool in spite of the ongoing racial slurs and discrimination from the other teams and the grandstand.  In the same way, the underlying racism of some of the Republican questioners hasn’t cracked Judge Jackson’s demeanor, even after almost twelve hours of questioning.  Both showed grace under pressure.

A Reason to Celebrate

Barring some incredibly damaging revelation, or, Joe Manchin losing his mind, Ketanji Brown Jackson will become the first Black woman on the US Supreme Court.  Her arrival won’t change the balance of the Court. The six conservative Justices are in full control of the Court’s decision making.  But she will bring a unique perspective to the conference, as a woman, a Black person, but most importantly as a brilliant legal scholar. She is one of the best, bar none, in the nation.  

Republican and Democratic Senators can argue who “politicized” the nomination process.  Republicans go back as far as the failed Robert Bork nomination in the 1980’s, Democrats look at McConnell’s manipulation of the process in the last years of both President Obama’s and Trump’s administration.  There is no question that there’s enough blame to spread around.

But it’s unfortunate that we cannot celebrate how far the United States has come.  Judge Jackson, is one of the top jurists in the nation, regardless of race or gender.  The United States will be better for her being on the Bench.  And she is proving her judicial “temperament” every additional hour she sits at the witness table.

Book of Common Truth

High Episcopal

I was raised an Episcopalian, but it was not a “generations” family tradition.  Mom was raised in England in the Roman Catholic Church,  Dad was raised in Cincinnati in the Jewish Reformed Temple.  There was no easy way to “mesh” their backgrounds, but their love for each other overcame all.  Dad didn’t want us raised as Catholics, but wasn’t all that concerned beyond that.  So, after World War II when Mom and Dad moved back to Cincinnati and had kids, Mom decided to turn to the most familiar Church she could find.

The Episcopal Church is the American version of the Anglican Church of England.   A very brief history:  the Anglican Church was created when England’s King Henry the VIII (of the six wives) was excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church for divorcing his first wife, Catherine of Aragon.  Henry decided to establish an English version of the Catholic Church with much the same liturgy, led by the Archbishop of Canterbury in England rather than the Pope in Rome.  Henry himself appointed the Archbishop, so that empowered him to “run” his own church.

When America revolted against England, the American version of the Church broke away from English regulation, thus creating the American Episcopal Church.  So while our Episcopal Church in Cincinnati down on Clifton Avenue was two “degrees” from the Roman Catholic Church, much of the symbolism and ceremony was the same.  Mom got us in a Church as close to Catholic as she could find. 

Calvary on Clifton

From the earliest times I can remember, we all dressed up on Sunday morning to go to Calvary Church, sit on the hard wooden pews, and squirm through prayers and speeches.  Mom and Dad often enjoyed Reverend Hansen’s sermons, though my father had the “Dahlman gene” of being able to fall asleep at any place, at any time, in any position.  Elbowing Dad to stop his snoring was part of the “fun” of Church!

And, as I learned later, there were two books on the back of the pew in front of us.  The first was the Hymnal so we could all join in for the songs.  And the second was the “Book of Common Prayer”.   When Henry the VIII broke away from Roman Catholicism, one of the first changes was to allow “regular folks” access to prayers, in English, instead of the Priests praying in Latin.  So the “commoners” got a book of prayers they could use in services.  That book has been used and revised ever since, with the Episcopal Church in America ratifying their own, similar version.

Whether you are sitting in Calvary Church in Cincinnati, Canterbury Cathedral in England,  St. Mary’s Cathedral in South Africa or the Church of the Holy Spirit in Florida; the prayers are virtually the same.  There is a common base of reference, a common set of words and beliefs, that everyone in the Church recognizes and acknowledges.  Unlike the prayers of the Priesthood, these were the prayers for the common man.  I no longer belong to a faith, but when I do happen to go to an Episcopal Church for weddings or funerals, the prayers still ring familiar.  They bring back all those memories of dress pants on wooden pews, smothered giggles and stern warnings; and a faith I failed to find.

Information

We live in a world of information.  What used to only be available to those willing to delve into the “stacks” of academic libraries, now is right in your own home, just a few strokes of a keyboard away.  The outdated “priesthood” of academics with special knowledge of history, now is accessible to everyone, in every home, at any time.  That should generally be a good thing.  My parents paid a stiff “fee” for my access to the “stacks” at the Denison University library.  Knowledge should be as available as possible, not hidden behind a tuition “paywall”.  

There is a phrase:  “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing”.  But with the immense flow of information available today, there might need to be a corollary phrase: “Too much knowledge without understanding can be a dangerous thing as well”.  We have “fire hoses” of information coming at us, all the time:  on our phones, on our computers, on our televisions.  It seems that there’s so much information, that  only the loudest and most extreme views stand out.

We have no common way of moderating the “fire hose”.  We have lost our “common book of knowledge”.  America, and maybe the whole world, no longer has a common set of facts we can agree on. 

It’s not that the “facts” themselves have changed that much.  Anyone who studied history gained an understanding that there were always flaws in everyone, whether it was George Washington or Thomas Jefferson or Abraham Lincoln or Booker T Washington or John F. Kennedy (or even my hero, Dr. Fauci).  The difference today is that the “bad” of each of those figures is presented as “cancelling out” the good.  If every good is cancelled out, then where is the “common understanding” we need to be a “congregation”, a nation.

Teaching History

When I taught history, it was always important to be honest with my students.  I presented the flaws of our predecessors, but all as a part of the reality of their humanity.  The “American common story”, was that out of their flawed lives, they produced amazing results that furthered our country.  No one was perfect then, and no one is now either.  As the teacher, I served as the “moderator”.

Today there are those who “discovered” the flaws in our history and say it negates all of the good.  And there are those who are so afraid of those flaws, that the don’t want our story “moderated”, they want it sanitized, without flaws at all. Neither of those choices are good for students, or for America.  What we need is a common understanding of the good and the bad, the personal failures and the national triumphs.  

We need a “common book of truth” that includes all.

Far From the Front

Today in History

It is the 20th Day of the Third Month of the 22nd Year of the 21st Century.  I always have to think carefully about that:  the very first century was the “0” century, but it still counts.  And the “00” year (2000) is technically the end of the last century, not the beginning of the new one (though we celebrated like it wasn’t 1999!!).   It just like a ten-year-old isn’t considered a “pre-teen”, but an eleven year old is.  So it is the 22nd year, but it’s actually one more century then Twenty.  Glad I got all that off of my chest.

A Wireless World

Folks born when I was, 1956 and thereabouts, thought the world would be totally different by now.  It’s not “The Jetsons” scenario, flying cars and robot housekeepers, but we really did think it would be altered more than it is.  Yes, I am typing now on a Macbook Pro that has more power than the computers that launched the Apollo Moon Missions, and carry another powerful computer with instant worldwide access in my pocket, my IPhone. 

 And I spent Saturday morning battling with electronic equipment and Spectrum (my internet provider), trying to determine why the multiple wireless devices around our home are running so slow.  Spectrum blamed my home network, I blamed their router. After lots of conversations and no conclusions, all of a sudden everything is back humming along again.  I don’t think it was my futzing with the plugs, Spectrum did something that unblocked whatever was clogged.

But the scenes on the television (sure it’s 55” and 4HD and doesn’t take fifteen minutes to warmup) are closer to the images my parents’ generation saw.  The Russian war machine is slowing chewing through Ukraine, killing civilians not as “collateral damage”, but as targeted punishment to try to force the Ukrainian Government to beg for mercy.  All our modern technology has given us the “insider view” of war, down to the bombs falling on the children’s hospital.  

History Rhyming Again

We are watching Manchuria in 1932 or Poland In 1939.  Regular people, just like you and me, with kids and pets and yards they took care of, are being swallowed up as “spoils” of war.  Three weeks ago they were watching the same internet sites, playing the same video games.  There was an interview with a young woman, who, like my son, is a DJ; developing and playing her own music in clubs.  She literally had to give it all up, not just the DJ-ing (obviously not a lot of night-life in a war zone) but the music.  No good listening to the music on her earpods – she might miss the air raid warning of the next bombing.

There are over a thousand women and children buried under a bombed out theatre in Mariupol.  The building was targeted, despite the word “CHILDREN” painted large in the parking lot.  It’s like the words made it a “higher value” prize for the Russian bombers.  It’s in the middle of a warzone, and still local firefighters and others are trying to pry folks out; but it doesn’t sound promising.

Forty years ago when I thought about the 2020’s, I didn’t think about the rise of Authoritarianism both here in the United States and overseas.  I didn’t think that dictators would again try to build empires and wreak savage conflict on civilians, children; just to fulfill some long forgotten dream of their “racial” place in history.  That wasn’t what the future was supposed to look like.

Prophecy 

Oddly, much of the science fiction I read as a teenager actually did prophesize one more world cataclysm, somewhere towards the turn of the 20th century.  Even in the show Star Trek there were the “Eugenics Wars”, that ended in a world industrial collapse, recovered by the invention of the “Warp Drive” engine to introduce humanity to deep space.  In other books there was a final brush with nuclear annihilation.  I always read those as fatalistic, that mankind hadn’t learned the lessons of World Wars the First or Second time.  Now, looking at Ukraine, maybe those guys were right.

I had a front yard conversation with our neighbor the other day.  He asked an interesting question:  what are WE doing to prepare for war?  I was a little taken aback, I don’t anticipate Russian T-57 Battle Tanks coming up Broad Street to take control of Dairy Hut and McDonalds.  But that’s not what he meant.  

All our life is connected through that same internet I was fighting with this morning.  There’s but a single paper dollar in my wallet.  The water, gas and electric meters aren’t “read” anymore, just a signal picked up by the utility.  Almost every aspect of our life is now controlled through web connections.  It wouldn’t take a physical invasion to disrupt American life, just someone running a computer program in an obscure building in St. Petersburg.  Our “cards” would stop working, our electricity stop flowing.  That would be enough to change everything.

Prepping

He suggested that we be ready to go back to a “cash” society;  maybe stick $1000 in twenties in the fireproof bag hidden in the house.  We should stock up on food supplies, in case the electric doors and check-out lines at the Kroger’s fail.  And maybe we need to make sure there’s an extra can of propane for the grill, an extra five gallons of gas for the generator, in case this conflict goes “cyber”.  After all, the Russian ruble is almost worthless, Russian retaliation against the US dollar might just be in the virtual world we all live in.

Does my neighbor sound a little like a “prepper”, one of those folks who head for the woods with their hunting rifles to take care of themselves when the “apocalypse” arrives?  Sure, and he admits that’s true.  But something to keep in mind.  Did we ever think we would see what’s happening in Ukraine?  Wasn’t that all in grainy black and white films late at night or in some history classroom?  It was something we learned about, but never expected to experience ourselves.

Today it’s real.  Who knows what the next “reality” might become.  I’m no “prepper” either, but there are a few more cans of soup and vegetables in the pantry, some extra gas in the shed.  And maybe there will be more than just one dollar in my wallet for a while. 

Essays on the Ukraine Crisis

The Next Step

David and Goliath

Ukraine is fighting a “David versus Goliath” battle against the second biggest military power in the world – Russia.  What the Russians, and the world, thought would be a surgical dissection of Ukraine, ending in the quick fall of Kyiv and the death or exile of President Zelenskyy, failed to occur.  Instead, the Ukrainians are fighting for every inch, and forcing Russia back into their “old” playbook from Afghanistan and Chechnya and Syria: destroy everything so there is nothing left to defend.

President Zelenskyy is speaking to many of the liberal democracies of the world – live from his office (or bomb shelter) in Kyiv.  He spoke, clad in a khaki t-shirt, to the United Kingdom’s and Canada’s Parliaments, the General Assembly of the European Union and the United Nations, and yesterday, to the Congress of the United States.  In each speech, he has picked a point of that group’s history and compared Ukraine’s battles to their own.  The speeches themselves are important, but what is more significant is that they provide “proof of life”, of Zelenskyy,  of the Ukrainian government, and Ukrainian resistance.

Anaconda Plan

The United States continues to ratchet up economic sanctions against Russia.  The Russian banks can’t participate in the world, the Russian stock market remains closed, even the Russian oligarchs are finding their luxury homes and yachts seized.  But it’s all in-direct action.  We are providing pain try to influence Russian plans.  But that pain is nothing compared to the pain Ukraine is inflicting.  Estimates are that as many as ten thousand Russian troops are dead.  

Ukraine is paying the heaviest price.  Thousands of Ukrainian soldiers are also dead, as well as many thousands of Ukrainian citizens, some caught in the crossfire, but many more intentionally targeted by the Russian military.  That is the new “Russian Strategy”:  we will destroy your cities and your people until you can bear the cost no longer.

The Ukrainian city of Mariupol is being leveled.  400,000 civilians remain in the battle zone.  It’s not a Russian mistake or strategic necessity.  It is the price they are making Ukrainians pay for daring to defend their own country.

The world sanctions against Russia will ultimately destroy their economy.  But it’s a slow process, an “Anaconda” plan of gradually choking out economic life.  Economic sanctions cannot keep pace with the horror occurring on the ground.  The demands by the free citizens of the world are growing; more needs to be done.

What Weapons

The United States is rounding up weaponry from around the world to slip to the Ukrainian military. It’s not simple.  The Ukrainian Army is a mix of “NATO” style and Russian weaponry.  It’s no good to give them weapons they are unable to use.  But the US is directly giving them “simple” high tech weapons, the Switchblade armed drone that looks like a toy but can loiter over a target, and then explode on it like a bomb.  

President Zelenskyy is asking for a NATO “no-fly” zone, clearing the skies of all aircraft over Ukraine.  He believes his army can hold its own, IF, he can control the skies.  But that tactic would cause a direct confrontation between NATO (US) and Russian warfighters, a major step towards World War III.  That final step is still one to avoid.  But Zelenskyy, and the Polish government, has offered an intermediate step that we should do – now.

Ukraine’s No-Fly Zone

Give Zelenskyy the tools to create his own “no-fly zone”.  If the Ukrainians need fighter jets, then we should give them fighter jets.  The Poles have the fighters that Ukraine needs, MiG 29’s and 27’s; fighters that the Ukrainian Air Force knows how to fly.  Poland has already offered those fighters up, but the “deal” was nixed by the strategists in the US Pentagon.  Their fear was that it was a NATO escalation that could trigger a Russian attack into a NATO nation – World War III.

That might have been a good call two weeks ago, but it hasn’t “aged” well.  Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that he will use the most egregious tactics against non-combatants in Ukraine.  We, to this point, have given him free rein to do so.  NATO and the US must find a way to raise the stakes again, beyond slow economic strangulation.  

So what does that all mean?  Poland will transfer the fighters to a US base in Germany.  Ukrainian pilots will slip out of Ukraine and accept the planes there.  Here’s the rub:  US forces will arm the planes, loading the missiles and other weapons, for their flight back to Ukrainian airbases.  Without the arms, then the whole exercise is a waste of time, and a death sentence to the Ukrainian planes and pilots.  It is inevitable that Russian air  defense forces will try to interdict the Ukrainian fighters along the way in.

Essentially then, the US base in Germany will be the launch site for forces used against the Russian Air Force.  That’s the Pentagon’s concern – and escalation towards direct conflict.  What if the Russians respond by a missile attack on the US Air Base?  

Putin’s Choice

If Putin intends to start World War III, he’s going to do it.  If his invasion of Ukraine was a “test” to see how far NATO would go in response, he’s got his answer.  The real question is – either he’s a “rational” actor, unwilling to start a World War he cannot win, or he’s not.  If he’s not rational, then World War III is probably inevitable.  If he’s rational, he won’t cross the line of a direct attack on NATO.  Either way, that’s out of our control.

What we can control, is our response to the ultimate sacrifice that Ukrainians are making.  It’s time to take the next step. The world demands it, and Ukraine has earned it.  Send them the MiG’s.

Ukraine Crisis

Dean Ramsey

I lost an old friend the other day.  Dean Ramsey died last week, at the great age of ninety-one years old.  Dean, the son of the Pataskala local hardware store owner,  graduated from Pataskala High School, a few years before it was consolidated into the Southwest Licking Local School and high school kids were sent to Watkins Memorial.  He went on to The Ohio State University to become a landscape architect, then into the Air Force during the Korean War.

Dean came back from his service, and began a career in Kansas City.  But he soon returned to become the first University Landscape Architect of Ohio State, and spent a career there at his alma mater, retiring in 1988 as an Assistant Vice President emeritus.

Everybody knew him as a Buckeye.  But Dean was even more dedicated to the place where he grew up, Pataskala, Ohio.  The little farm town where Dean was born during the Great Depression, was going through tremendous changes, as Columbus spread out and farm fields became suburban housing developments.   Dean helped the town through that process, dedicating a big portion of his life to kids through Boy Scouting and his work in the schools.

I met Dean early in my career at Watkins.  His son Brooke was a runner, (we met on the track when I was a student teacher and he was a hot-shot eighth grader), and was part of the track and cross country programs through high school.  Dean always followed Brooke’s career, and was always there with words of encouragement both for his son and this young coach and teacher, just a few years older.

But where I really got to know Dean Ramsey was through Scouting.  Dean was involved in the local Pataskala Troop, 21.  Scouting had always been a big part of my life, so while I was an Assistant Track Coach out at school, I was also an Assistant Scoutmaster, and for several years helped out in that program where I was most familiar. 

One of our “Good Deeds” was to clean up the town after the annual Pataskala Street Fair ended at eleven on Saturday night. I remember getting “chewed out” by Dean – I was picking up a broken bottle – “we don’t pick up broken glass without GLOVES, Marty!!” He was taking care of folks, even then – in the middle of the night. 

Dean was always my vision of “old time” Pataskala.  He married his sweetheart in 1952, and Ann worked as a secretary at the Middle School for much of the time I taught there.  It was Ann’s gentle voice that was on the phone call at 7:30 in the morning – “Marty, Mr. Gardner (the principal) wants to know if you’re coming in to school today”.  It was such a gentle way to wake up to the terrifying reality – you slept through the alarm, and kids were already in your classroom.

Dean knew everything about the school and the town.  He designed the stadium at the “new” high school (that’s the 1955 school, not the 1980 school or the 2022 school), and when we wanted to find where some drainage was blocked, or how the wires were run, Dean was usually the answer.  He was part of the community group that built the field (and the new all-weather track) in 1977.  The National Guard came out to help, and stayed at the school (it was the year before I arrived, but I heard stories – beer kegs rolling in the halls?).  They built the second all-weather track here in Licking County.  It was awesome as a student-teacher and first year coach.  I remember when the snow melted and I finally saw “our” eight lane “super-highway”.

I’ve been part of building two tracks on that site since then, and I understand both the pride and the ownership you feel for that quarter-mile piece of asphalt and surface. And when we were trying to re-do the facility, Dean always had the answers we needed, like what to do about the drainage that created “Lake Watkins” (I actually windsurfed it once behind the visitors bleachers).  Dean usually remembered off the top of his head, or he went home and found the precise landscape architectural plan that showed the answers.

Dean served on the school board long before I came to Watkins, but he was on the County School Board for a number of years during my career.  And he was always supportive when it came to passing school levies.

So I knew Dean through track, through school, and through Scouting.  And I also knew Dean through his work at the West Licking Historical Society.  He and a number of his “peers” from “old Pataskala” compiled a huge history of the area, thousands of pages of what life was like in the town where they grew up, and what life was like in the present as well (around 1990).   It was all encompassing.

Everyone in “old” Pataskala probably has a “Dean Ramsey story”.  Here’s mine.  Back in 1988 I had a pole vaulter named Chris, an all-state athlete, who also was a brilliant student.  He loved pole vault, and he loved art and music as well, and wanted to find a way to combine those into his senior art project.  

He decided to build a set of bag-pipes, and asked me if I knew of anyone who knew about the instrument.  And I did – Dean Ramsey was a “piper” in the Scottish rite,  and I arranged for Chris to meet him.  Dean was incredibly generous with his time, and whole-heartedly helped with the project.  They created ceramic pipes, and installed all of the proper “bags” to make it work.  As I remember, they may have been the heaviest set of bagpipes ever made, but they did play.

I don’t know this for sure, but knowing Dean Ramsey I bet he and Chris had conversations that went beyond bagpipes.  Maybe in that discussion, they talked about design and architecture.   Anyway, Chris graduated and went off to pole vault for Yale and work towards an engineering degree.  But he soon found the way to combine his skill in math and physics with his artistic drive.  He became an architect, and designed buildings all over the world.  He’s still doing that today.

That was Dean, always willing to help, always supportive, always a strong “pillar” of our community. Even when he was older, it was always good to have a fifteen minute conversation in the coffee aisle at Kroger.  I never have to look far to think of him – his drawing of old “downtown” Pataskala in the “good old days”, with Ramsey’s hardware in the center, is hanging on the wall in our kitchen.  Dean was a good man, always with a story about his kids or grandkids, and even when his health was starting to fail, always wanted to know what YOU were doing.  

Pataskala lost a pillar, a friend, and a link to the past, last week. He will be missed.  

Downtown Pataskala – 1940’s

Thinking the Unthinkable

A few days ago, a Soviet style drone with explosives crashed in a field in Croatia. It flew 700 miles, over the NATO countries of Romania and Hungary, to explode near Zagreb, the capital of NATO member Croatia. It might have been Russian or Ukrainian. Neither country has accepted responsibility (BBC).

MAD

At the height of the Cold War in 1962, an American theorist named Herman Kahn published a book; Thinking the Unthinkable.  It was about strategies of nuclear war, beyond the widely accepted “MAD Theory”.  “MAD” meant mutually assured destruction, that no matter what kind of attack one nuclear power made, the “attackee” would have a remaining strike capability that would create unacceptable losses to the attacker.  That strike capability was called a “second strike”, and was a critical pillar of US nuclear strategy.

We had missiles in silos spread out through the United States.  We had nuclear bomb equipped aircraft on “ready alert”, prepared to fly to Failsafe positions around the Soviet Union on a few minutes notice.  And finally, we had nuclear missile submarines, almost untraceable, hidden in oceans throughout the world, ready to launch on order.  It was the “triad” defense, and it made the point – if you attack us, no matter how many missiles, how many bombs, how much nuclear destruction; there will still be enough weapons left over to destroy you.

Acceptable Losses

Herman Kahn was thinking about how the  United States could “protect” enough of its population to make a Soviet second strike “survivable”.  He theorized that there could be an acceptable nuclear war, if “only” twenty percent or so of the population was lost.  In those days, that meant casualties of twenty to thirty million.

Other strategists didn’t find those losses “acceptable”.  In fact, the Civil Defense movement of the 1950’s and early 1960’s phased out because it was seen as moving towards an “acceptable loss” view.  (If you’re my age or older, you remember the black and yellow Civil Defense signs, all over the place). And in the 1980’s, the Reagan “Star Wars” anti-missile defense program was considered dangerous because it threatened the balance of MAD.

Article Five

Sunday, Russian non-nuclear missiles struck a Ukrainian base, just twelve miles from the Polish border.  The United States is pledged under Article Five of the NATO agreement to defend Polish soil is if it were our own. US Troops are already there, as well as in the Baltic States, held at the ready for a Russian attack.  There are over 100,000 US forces in Europe.

President Biden made it clear in his speech last week.  The United States will supply and support Ukrainian forces, but will not fight in Ukraine.  That’s as long as the Russian invasion remains “status-quo”.  As Biden said, US forces against Russians is the definition of World War III.  But Biden also made it clear, that we will fight World War III against Russia, if they decide to attack any NATO country.  

And what happens if the “status quo” changes?  Biden left open what the US would do should Russia decide to use chemical, cyber (or nuclear) weapons in Ukraine. 

Putin’s Goals

We know what Vladimir Putin wants.  He’s made it clear:  he wants to reconstitute the Soviet empire, both the “states” of the USSR (Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Moldova, Belarus, Ukraine) and the “Warsaw Pact” Russia leaning Eastern European countries.  What we don’t know, is how far Putin is willing to go to achieve that goal. 

It’s clear that Russia thought the invasion of Ukraine would be swift and devastating.  Their “plan” called for a quick decapitation of Ukraine by capturing Kyiv, taking the eastern part of the nation, and cutting off access to the Black Sea.  But what they thought would be a week long campaign has entered a fourth week, and the battle is deteriorating.   It’s now an ugly street to street and house to house slog, losing thousands of soldiers and millions of dollars of equipment. It has backfired to the world:  uniting NATO, the European Union, and the vast majority of countries in the United Nations against Russia.

Now that the operational plan in Ukraine has failed, and much of the world is united, what will Mr. Putin do? 

Fulfill His Destiny

He likely will fight to fulfill the Ukraine strategy – take Kyiv, take the east, and block the Black Sea.  It will then turn into a dangerous war of occupation, one that will suck the life out of the Russian Army, just as Afghanistan did thirty-five years ago.  Common sense would dictate that he would stop there:  the next step would be too awesomely terrible to contemplate.  

But we can’t be sure of that.  No one is “in” Putin’s head.  After more than twenty years in power, we don’t know to what lengths he will go to “fulfill his destiny”.  And with his autocratic power, it is an individual decision, one that will be made by him and him alone.

The NATO countries are suppling weapons to Ukraine.  If Russia decides to interdict the supply lines outside of Ukraine, NATO needs to respond in kind.  For every missile or bomb that lands in NATO, the NATO countries led by the United States must not only take out the launch site, but interdict Russian supply lines in Russia and Belarus in a similar fashion.  And that means American war-fighters will be at risk against the Russian military.  By the President’s definition – it’s World War III.

Limited Warfare

But, to “think the unthinkable”, this can be an incremental war, that need not rise to nuclear standards.  If Russia launches an actual invasion of Poland or the Baltic States, the US and NATO must respond with more than equal force to repel that invasion.  And once those forces are repelled back into Russian boundaries, the US and NATO must stop.  The goal must be to keep Russia in place, not destroy Putin’s regime.  If we try to do that, we risk all of the Mutually Assured Destruction nightmare scenarios contemplated for generations. 

One theory of warfare among nuclear nations is the “slippery slope” theory.  It states that no matter how incremental the warfare, once two Nuclear Nations are at war, they will ultimately  use their nuclear weapons, rather than lose.  That is why “losing” cannot be total. Going to war can only be incremental, force level to force level.  Once we cross the “threshold” of direct confrontation, the world steps onto that slippery slope.  It would be easy to fall, or to force the opponent to fall as well.  Even leaders of good will could fall into a MAD consequence.  That is why containing Russia to its borders, or pushing their forces back, is all we can do.

That’s the danger we face from the Ukraine situation, the danger that Putin himself has created.  But to fail to act is truly just as dangerous.  An unfettered Russian aggression holds few bounds except those we are willing to place on them.  President Biden has clearly drawn his “line in the sand”.  Let’s hope that Mr. Putin gets the message.

Essays on the Ukraine Crisis

Et Tu, Ohio

Don’t Say Gay

The big headlines aren’t from Ohio.  Florida is passing legislation to ban teachers from talking about sexual orientation issues to students, particularly primary grade kids.  That might seem like it makes sense – primary grade kids aren’t usually sexually aware, even in this digital age.  But it’s an insidious way of “teaching” little kids “right and wrong, good and bad”.  Little Bobby can talk all he wants about Mommy and Daddy with the teacher, but Johnny can’t talk about his two Mommies, or Jenny about her two Daddies.  

Kids are intensely aware of what the adults in their lives say, and don’t say.  The fact that one of the most influential adults in their lives, the teacher, will talk with kids whose parents are two genders, but not kids with parents of one, won’t “get by” them.  And if teacher won’t talk about it, then there must be something wrong, bad, about it.  The silence will deliver the message.

The opposition to the bill calls it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill, and that’s what teachers may be forced to do.  Much like the Texas anti-abortion legislation, the “Don’t Say Gay” bill doesn’t create criminal penalties.  But it invites parents to file lawsuits against teachers who “violate” the law.  A teacher who does discuss Johnny’s two Mommies could be sued by any parent in the class.  The law makes that teacher liable for damages.

Texas History

Texas has already passed a law costing over $14 million a year, to “train” teachers how to discuss “controversial” issues – making sure that they present “all sides” of such “controversies” as the Holocaust, the Civil Rights Movement, or even slavery.  And if a teacher is “uncomfortable”, then by law, “…(the) teacher may not be compelled to discuss a widely debated and currently controversial issue of public policy or social affairs (Texas Trib)”. 

 Looks like no more history discussions in Texas.

You might think that Ohio is “above” this wave of crazy restrictive legislation.  After all, Ohio has a fully Republican legislature, state executive and judicial branch, yet the Supreme Court is ruling against the Republican gerrymandering plans – multiple times.   And while Ohio does have an anti-abortion bill “on tap” should the US Supreme Court overrule Roe v Wade and Casey, the state legislature hasn’t gone “wild” like Texas or Missouri and tried to double jump the current Roe holding and ban abortion.

HB 327

Ohio House Bill Number 327 is twenty-one pages long.  Most of the bill deals with the recognition of private charter schools and state education funding, an issue which drives public school advocates crazy.  But that’s not what the “controversy” of HB 327 is about.  It’s in the first four pages.

The short title is:  “A Bill to amend…the Revised Code to prohibit school districts, community schools, STEM schools and state agencies from teaching, advocating, or promoting divisive concepts”. 

What’s a divisive concept, here in the Buckeye state?

Divisive Concept Definitions

  • That one group is inherently superior to another*
  • That the US is fundamentally racist or sexist
  • That one person, by belonging to a group, is consciously or unconsciously racist*
  • An individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment because of their group*
  • Members of one group cannot and should not attempt to treat others without respect to their group*
  • An individual’s moral character is determined by their group membership*
  • An individual, by virtue of their group, is responsible for actions committed in the past by other members of their group*
  • That meritocracy or a hard work ethic are racist or sexist or created by one group to oppress another group*
  • Any form of race or sex stereotyping or any other form of race or sex scapegoating
  • *group means “nationality, color, ethnicity, race or sex.

And if a school district teaches one of these “divisive” concepts?  Then the Department of Education will withhold part of their state funding until they stop.

In the Classroom

I was a Social Studies teacher, living and working in a suburban school district.  Our district was largely white, middle class, and Christian.  As an eighth grade history teacher – I taught about enslavement, the Holocaust, women’s suffrage, the civil rights movement, and the equal rights movement.   All of those are “divisive” issues.  Can today’s teacher still teach them?

Well – sort of.  

It’s OK (section D of the bill says so) to discuss “divisive” concepts in an objective manner “without endorsement”.  And it’s OK to have an “impartial” discussion of controversial aspects of history.  And finally, it’s OK to give “impartial” instruction of historical oppression of a particular “group”. 

Oh, and it’s all right to talk about national motto, national anthem, the Ohio Constitution, the US Constitution, the Revised Code, Federal Law, and US Supreme Court decisions.  Those are the ones listed – I wonder how much trouble the Emancipation Proclamation might create?

How Impartial

So when I taught about the Three Fifth’s Compromise in the Constitution, would I need to be “impartial” about the fact it counted slaves as a fraction of a person for the purpose of how many seats in Congress a state received, but not for voting?  Am I supposed to take James Madison avowed view; that recognizing them as a fraction was better than not recognizing enslaved people as humans at all?  Is that “impartial” enough?

Impartiality is in the eye of the beholder.  That first year of eighth grade history, I had a Holocaust denier in class.  I soon realized that most of my students only had a vague understanding of what the Holocaust was, (or American enslavement, or the Indian removal).  So I took some extra class time to give them more than just a casual understanding of those events. I wanted them to understand that while there’s lots of good in the world, there’s lots of evil as well.  

Was I being impartial while teaching historic inhumanity?   Oh Hell no.

More Perfect

 The United States was founded by flawed men.  Many of them didn’t recognize an entire race as being completely human.  The Declaration’s “…all men are created equal” was a very limited concept (and it’s not on the list anyway).  And they didn’t believe women were “equal” either. I believe in American Exceptionalism – but America is a nation flawed from its inception.  What makes America exceptional is its growth, overcoming the flaws that were there in the beginning, and some that are still here today.  As Madison himself wrote:  “We the People of the United States, in order to form a MORE perfect union…”.  

It is in the act of becoming “More Perfect” that America is exceptional.   But that’s probably “divisive” – and shouldn’t be taught.  

It Doesn’t Have to Pass

HB 327 isn’t a law – yet.  And the language is so convoluted that it’s hard to see how it will be enforced.  But that’s not really the point, is it.  HB 327 up for debate and vote for two reasons.  First, it fits in with the current political “trend”, erroneously called Critical Race Theory.  One political party has found this “wedge” issue to drive their voters to the polls – and this legislation is all of that.  

And second, whether 327 becomes law or not, it is part of the larger message to teachers and students:  don’t question the “standard” lesson, don’t challenge students to think “outside the box”.  It might be divisive, make students uncomfortable, and it might cost the teachers their jobs.  A vocal minority wish to silence teachers.  They want to go back to the history books of the 1950’s, when the Civil War was a dispute over states’ rights, not slavery, and all of the heroes were white men. (If you don’t know – the Civil War was all about slavery). 

HB 327 pretends that the US is already Perfect.  And that’s the first mistake.

Russian Oil

Into the Weeds

The United States government has banned the import of oil from Russia, as part of the sanctions for invading Ukraine.   Russian oil represents about 7% of the oil imported to the United States.  The United States, though, is a net-petroleum exporter.  So why were we importing Russian oil in the first place?

First thing to remember, the government of the United States is not the “entity” importing oil.  The United States is a capitalist country, and private companies buy oil, not the government.  That doesn’t matter whether it’s imported or domestic, or even oil coming from US Government owned lands.  The United States government does not drill or sell oil.  It does buy some to place in a strategic reserve, but that’s about it.

It’s About Price 

The cost of gasoline is getting higher – setting “world records”.  There’s no question that Americans are frustrated:  more and more of their income is going into the gas tank.  One factor to consider is that we “got used” to artificially low gas prices during the pandemic.  Folks weren’t going places, so the supply of gas was high and the demand low – prices went down.  Then, starting in January of 2021, we began to go back to pre-pandemic life.  Gas demand went up, and prices went right up with it.  That was all happening before Putin invaded Ukraine.  

Gas prices were already high because of supply and demand – and then Ukraine happened.  That impacted the world oil “futures” markets, even before Russian oil was banned.   And that  jacked prices up even more.  None of that is attributable to Joe Biden, or even Donald Trump.  The pandemic low was a consequence of a world where fewer people went to work, or on trips, or out to the movies.  Need another example – check out the cost of an airplane flights now compared to a year ago.

Russian Oil

Why does the US import oil from anybody?  The answer is simple and complicated.  The simple answer is that it’s cheaper to bring Russian oil to the east coast of the United States, then it is to move US oil to the coast from where it’s found.  Moving oil from the Southwest to the Northeast by pipeline is expensive.  Moving it by boat is even more expensive – especially because of a law that allows sea transport from one US port to another only on US flagged and owned ships,  the Jones Act.   All of the “supertankers” are registered in Panama, to avoid US safety and labor restrictions.  

And there are only a few places in the United States where a supertanker could actually land to off-load their cargo.  So to move oil from Texas or Oklahoma or Alaska to the northeast United States is expensive.  Refineries in the northeast use imported oil because it’s cheaper than US oil would be.

Keystone Won’t Help

The second thing you’ll hear, is that we could complete the Keystone XL Pipeline from Canada, and have plenty of oil.  There are problems with that as well.  The XL Pipeline isn’t near completion,  only 8% done (Reuters). And even if it was, that pipeline is shipping tar sand oil from Canada, the dirtiest oil available.  To refine that into gasoline for cars is expensive, and polluting.  It definitely isn’t a short-term solution to replace banned Russian oil, and it’s not a good long-term solution either, in terms of global climate change.  

Is it possible for the US to generate more oil production?  Absolutely, though keep in mind the US government doesn’t drill for oil – oil companies do.  The places where they haven’t drilled for oil yet are more remote and expensive, and will take a while to produce product.  That’s not a short-term solution, and even in the medium term, oil coming from there would cost more to produce, and so cost more to buy.

But the United States government does have a strategic oil reserve, 714 million barrels of oil kept in salt caverns along the Gulf of Mexico.  (There’s a vision of steel barrels of oil stacked on top of each other, but the oil is pumped into the caverns, not stored in barrels).  To gain some perspective, the US uses about 20 million barrels of oil a day, so the strategic reserve is about a thirty-six day supply.  And the US production is about 11 million barrels of oil a day, so with just internal production and the oil reserves the US would last about eighty days (USDoE).

Keep Your Enemies Close

So what are the other alternatives?  We could get more oil on the market, by encouraging currently banned countries to produce oil:  Venezuela and Iran.  Of course, that kind of forgives Venezuela for overthrowing their democratic government and installing a dictatorship.  And when the US backed out of the Iran nuclear deal, Iran proceeded to ramp up production of weapons grade nuclear material.  So buying oil from them rewards them for that .

The ”traditional” American move would be to get Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates to increase oil production to make up the difference and lower world oil prices.  But more oil is not in those countries best interest – they have oil, and it’s worth more today than it was three weeks ago.  Why should they produce more now, simply to lower the cost?  Where’s the profit for them? 

It Ain’t Easy Being Green

And one final factor to consider.  The United States is committed to becoming a “clean-energy” nation.  The “short-term” crisis in Ukraine does nothing to change the longer-term crisis the entire globe faces from climate change.  The number one pollutant is fossil fuels – coal, gas, and oil.  Reducing our dependence on those fuels is and should be a national  goal – and will have a short-term cost, whether we do it to hurt Russia, or to protect our children’s future. It’s called “chewing gum and walking” at the same time.

So banning Russian oil is going to raise prices for every American.  Gasoline, electric power, and even natural gas all have a relationship to oil prices, and those prices will likely go up.  That’s going to push Americans to find ways to conserve and reduce the amount of oil they use.  By conserving, we will take steps towards improving the environment, intentionally or not.  It’s a financial burden, but it’s something Americans ought to do for our children, anyway.

More importantly, it’s what we can do to support the Ukrainian people, who are suffering for all democracy loving peoples. Frankly, it’s the least we can do for those who are fighting the first battle on the edge of World War III. 

 Let’s hope it’s the only one.

Ukraine Crisis

Convoy 

If you liked Smokey and the Bandit (1, 2, and 3) then you had to love 1978’s  CONVOY

“THERE MUST BE A MAINSTREAM MEDIA NEWS BLACKOUT – “GOOD BUDDY!!!”  WHERE’S THE WALL TO WALL COVERAGE OF – THE CONVOY!!!!!”

Ottawa

In life and in politics, there’s something called “a window of opportunity”.  It’s a simple concept:  there’s a “magic time” when all of the trends point to a single action.  For the fortunate, that manage to do the right thing at the right time; they can change the world.

The Canadian Truck protests were a prime example of the “hitting” the moment.  A small number (ten percent?) of Canadian truckers were furious with the vaccine mandates required to cross the US border.  The mandates were on both sides, both Canadian and US policies.  But the truckers protested the Canadian rules, by driving their trucks into the national capital of Ottawa, and paralyzing the town.   They wouldn’t leave.  And Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister, was loath to use offensive police action to remove them.  So the Canadian truckers got a world stage in the streets of Ottawa and at the border crossings.

Trudeau

Many felt that Trudeau should have acted sooner, and ordered the police and the tow trucks into Ottawa.  But perhaps Trudeau realized that the truckers were already “late”.  Their “window” was closing.  The science was clear that the Omicron variant of Covid was burning through and burning out.  Soon the infection, hospitalization and death rates would drop as quickly as they went up.  In short, the longer Trudeau waited, the less the truckers had to complain about.  

The Canadian truckers hung around for almost a month.  Finally Trudeau declared a national emergency, and with very little violence, the vehicles were cleared and “normal” life was restored.

Eastbound and Down

But the trucking protests resonated in the United States. Much of the Canadian trucker financing already came from US sources.  Canadian trucks even had pro-Trump signage.  If it worked in Canada, a country that pretty much went along with all of the Covid protocols, then it should be HUGE in the United States where Covid wasn’t seen as a public health issue at all.  It was completely politicized, divided along partisan lines.  Americans who erroneously felt that Donald Trump won the Presidency, were generally against every public health measure to control Covid.

And there is a long tradition of trucking protests, so big, that in the late 1970’s they made a major motion picture about it – CONVOY!  It  had big-time actors, with Kris Kristofferson, Ali McGraw, and even Ernest Borgnine.  It was about a “protest” of local traffic controls that became a national truck protest,  and it resonated with an America that was fatigued from the Vietnam War protests, hippies, and the upheaval of the Watergate Era.  We went from anti-war protest rallies and songs about martyred students (Four Dead in Ohio) to disco, Staying Alive, Smokey and the Bandit (1,2, and 3, the one with the elephant)  and finally CONVOY!  

Grievances

It was a perfect fit.  Some Americans were frustrated with the Covid mandates – demanding personal “FREEDOM” from masks and vaccines.  And they were truly angry that Joe Biden won the Presidential election.  They longed for a simpler time, when issues like diversity and pandemics weren’t problems —  the “good old days”, like the late 1970’s.  So a trucker protest, starting in California and unifying the entire nation as it crossed to Washington DC seemed like a perfect “vehicle” (hah!) for their grievances.

The trucks began in Adelanto, California, outside of Los Angeles, and slowly (about 350 miles a day) made their way across the country.  There were ultimately about 150 trucks, and many more pickups and cars that joined up the procession as it moved across the American interstate highway system.  The convoy was well coordinated with local and state police, and politely avoided disrupting the city centers.  

And there was support.  From many suburban and rural overpasses and exits, small groups gathered with American flags, Trump signs , and “Don’t Tread on Me” banners to show their agreement with the honking parade.  Donated feasts were laid out at the overnight rest stops by Convoy “groupies”.

Too Late

The problem for the convoy organizers, was that the “window” was already closed.  Literally as they crossed the country, state after state dropped mandatory mask mandates for their cities and schools.  That wasn’t in reaction to the Convoy, but in response to the science.  Omicron was burning out, and the mandates were no longer necessary.

Regular media stopped covering the Convoy as a political statement, and dealt with them more as a traffic hazard.  And then, Russia invaded Ukraine. All of the media “oxygen” went out of the room.

The “Convoy” is still out there, staying at the Hagerstown Speedway in Maryland, about ninety minutes west of Washington, DC.  Sunday through Tuesday, they lined up and drove I-70 east to the I-70/I-270 split to Washington.  Then onto the DC outer-belt, Interstate 495, for a sixty-four mile loop around the Capital.  Wednesday it rained, and they stayed in Hagerstown.

But they didn’t go “into DC”.  They made great efforts to prevent the unending traffic nightmare of the DC beltway from getting worse.  And their issues:  mask mandates and Covid restrictions, continued to disappear.  There’s nothing more frustrating; they missed their “window”.  The “Convoy” is irrelevant.

Below the Fold

The Washington Post moved the “Convoy” story from the front page on Sunday, to “below the fold” in the Metro section on Wednesday.  “Convoy” leaders met with Republican Senators Ted Cruz of Texas and Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, to discuss government mandates.  But that discussion becomes more “academic” by the day.  Even the Washington Times, a conservative newspaper sympathetic to the “cause”, had only a five sentence article buried in their metro section on Wednesday morning (Wash Times).

Convoy organizers face a choice.  They can complete their week-long protest, circling the DC outer-belt with faint views of the Washington Monument and the Capitol building, then head back off into the countryside.  Or, they can try to “raise the stakes” and force their column into town, hoping to circle the National Mall.  That will get them back on the “front page”, as a traffic hazard and disruption.  But it won’t change their misfortune – their window of opportunity is firmly closed.

“Ten-Four Good Buddy – time to put the hammer down and head for the barn.  See you on the flip-side”.

Kyiv’s Choice

Note –It’s now six essays in a row about the Russian invasion of Ukraine.  It’s not that there isn’t important things happening in the US – the Supreme Court upheld Pennsylvania’s and North Carolina’s redistricting plans yesterday – among other things.  And I’ll get back to “Our America” soon.  But the drama of Ukraine – and the risk it raises for the world, is too great to ignore.

Eighth Grade History

If you remember Eighth Grade History, you remember the Civil War.  It was usually the best part of the Social Studies year, sometime in the middle of winter, when a good history teacher could intrigue a class with the pathos of battle between brothers.  You might even remember the original battle cries: “Onto Richmond” and “Onto Washington”.  Both armies aimed at their opponent’s capitals, hoping to capture them and quickly end the war.

The list of battles “on the road” to the capitals is long: First and Second Bull Run, Seven Pines, Malvern Hill, Fredericksburg, the Wilderness, Spotsylvania and the others in the long and bloody campaign of the summer of 1864.  Both sides were convinced that capturing, and ultimately destroying the other’s capital would end the war.  Both sides committed huge resources to defending Washington and Richmond.  And, in the end, they were right.  The fall of Richmond marked the final chapter in the end of the Confederate cause.  It was only weeks before the entire War was over.

Lee’s Decision

At the end of the War, the leading Confederate General, Robert E. Lee, made a strategic decision.  He was faced with three choices.  The first was a final, all-out battle with hugely superior Union forces, one that would result in the annihilation of what remained of his Army of Virginia.  He could find no value in that choice – a final battle to the death would only result in total destruction.  There was no “up-side” for his forces, or the Confederacy.

The second choice was brought to him by his junior officers – dissolve the army.  The Army of Virginia could not escape the Union Army of the Potomac, but small groups of men without heavy equipment could evade the Union patrols, and escape to the western mountains.  There, they could continue an insurgency, carrying on the Confederate cause through what today we would call guerrilla warfare.

Lee recognized that this kind of warfare would continue for generations.  And he saw that it did not further the ideals of the secessionists, who argued a “legal” theory to leave the Union.  Insurgency would be the opposite of what the founders of the Confederacy intended.  Their “plantation society” with its “peculiar institution” could not exist through insurrection.  The “Cause” would not be furthered by it. 

So he took the third choice, surrender of his forces to the Union.  General Grant offered him a generous surrender agreement, allowing his men rations and the freedom to go home.  Lee’s Army wasn’t the last in the field for the Confederacy, but it set the precedent for what the other Generals would do.  Within two months, Johnson in North Carolina, Kirby-Smith in New Orleans and Chief Stand Watie in Oklahoma surrendered and the Civil War was over.

Kyiv

There are few strategic military targets in Kyiv, just three million citizens in the capital of Ukraine.  But the symbolism of the Russian attack on Kyiv is clear.  Take the city, and take the “heart” of the Ukrainian resistance.  While Kyiv stands independent, Ukraine remains unconquered, still a sovereign nation standing tall against the vaunted Russian forces.  Once Kyiv falls, the war will become an insurgency, a guerilla war of ambush and dissolve.

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is not in the same position as Robert E. Lee.  There is value in holding Kyiv.  The longer he can maintain a government there, the “worse” the Russians look to the rest of the world.  NATO and the United Nations has united against Putin and the Russians, something that might not have happened if Kyiv fell in the first few days.  

And every time a Russian artillery shell or missile or bomb falls on the millions of civilians in Kyiv, Russia isolates itself even more from the world.  Unlike Lee’s choice, the ultimate destruction of Kyiv does have meaning, if it happens.  It becomes the rallying cry for Ukrainian resistance as that resistance turns to the insurgency that Lee denied.  And it becomes the symbol that will continue to make Russia a pariah to the world. 

Lighting the Torch

So President Zelenskyy revealed his position today, sitting in his office in the Presidential Palace in Kyiv.  He is symbolically “giving the finger” to the Russians.  Just as Kyiv still stands, in spite of the massive amounts of Russian troops and tanks and planes, so does Zelenskyy.   He is challenging them, forcing them to destroy the entire city in order to “conquer” it.  Don’t be surprised if the two hundred and seventy-eight year old Palace, ironically built for a Russian empress, is flattened soon.

There will be no “cavalry” riding over the hill to save Ukraine.  With the ugliness of total warfare, Russia will destroy Kyiv (and symbolically Ukraine) building by building.  Trapped in the city will be millions of non-combatants, civilians, many of whom will be killed.  And the sacrifice of the city and the people will serve as a torch light for the Ukrainian resistance to follow.  Whatever happens to Kyiv, or Zelenskyy; Russia has already lost their war of conquest.  The people of Ukraine will never forget, and never cease to fight.  

Will the world will still stand with them?

Ukraine Crisis

The Logic of Madness

History Rhymes

The crisis in Ukraine brings up all sorts of historic similarities.  Putin is obviously analogous to Hitler in the 1930’s, trying to build a European empire in a world that’s no longer thinks in terms of military might.  NATO represents the former Allies of World War I, self-centered and unwilling to accept the illogic of dictatorial mania.  

And the United States is almost exactly where it was in the 1930’s:  self-absorbed, to the point we even use the terminology of the time, “America First”.  We are wrapped up in our politics,  the pandemic, and the economy.  We worry about truck “convoys” driving in circles around our Nation’s Capital.  And meanwhile the people of Ukraine are systematically being conquered, village by village and building by building.  

Pain and Suffering

Step one in understanding our current situation is realizing that Putin may be mad, but he’s not crazy.  He has determined that Russia cannot go on without Ukraine, and perhaps the other former “Republics” of the Soviet Union.  Further, he is convinced that he, and the Russian people, can endure more pain and suffering than his opponents.  That conviction means that “losing” has a whole different meaning to him, certainly than it does to NATO.  If he wins an empire, and kills millions, he has succeeded – like Hitler or Stalin.

Step two is to recognize that the strategic logic of the last three decades won’t work today.  The War on Terror strategies of  cold-blooded long range strikes with unmanned drones or cruise missiles are meaningless in this situation.  In the War on Terror we tried to put money in the game instead of blood (except for those soldiers who fought in the hills of Afghanistan or the streets of Iraq).  But we are not fighting against low tech enemies interested in causing us pain and suffering, but unable to threaten us strategically.  This would be a war of the first order, with all the weaponry of modern total warfare on the table.  

The Quiet Part

Step three is that while economic warfare, sanctions and mandates, might eventually work, its effectiveness all depends on the Russian people.  Senator Lindsey Graham voiced the quiet part out loud when he tweeted that, “somebody should take that guy (Putin) out”.   Assassination shouldn’t be a part of the national policy – but what else are we asking, with the slow-motion destruction of the Russian economy?  Aren’t we really trying to cause so much economic pain to the Russian people, and more importantly, the Russian oligarchs who represent Putin’s true constituency, that they throw him out?  

Putin’s not Khrushchev; he won’t go quietly to his dacha in the country.  To take Putin out means just that – assassination.  So while Graham was indiscreet (that’s twice last week) he not wrong.

True Madness

Madness and pain brings the ultimate weaponry into question – nuclear bombs.  The “balance” of the Cold War was maintained by “Mutual Assured Destruction”, MAD.  The final chapter of nuclear warfare is already written:  utter destruction of civilization through nuclear holocaust.  The question:  how close is Putin willing to press to that final conclusion?  Is he willing to use “tactical” nuclear weapons, “small” Hiroshima like bombs, to achieve his goals?  He is convinced the Russian people will accept more pain than anyone else, perhaps even isolated nuclear devastation.  Nuclear responses are NOT off the table.  The United States cannot unilaterally disarm – we can only offer an equal-devastating response if needed.

Putin’s current line seems to be:  I will do what I want to Ukraine.  You may not react, directly.  A US driven “No Fly Zone” would bring American and Russian fighters head-to-head.  Even more, US missiles would strike Russian anti-aircraft installations in Russia itself.  That would be a dramatic escalation, a “double jump” that would require Russian reaction and escalation.  But NATO giving Ukraine fighter jets or anti-aircraft technology to use on their own is an incremental step.  Putin will warn against it, and certainly not like it, but it doesn’t alter his basic premise.  

And it won’t change the ultimate fate of Ukraine – just increase the pain that the Russian and Ukrainian people will feel.

Line in the Sand

The NATO/US line is clear:  we will do everything short of direct involvement to support Ukraine.  And if Russia steps over a NATO country boundary, “the line in the sand”, then we will respond with full military force.  Putin isn’t convinced.  He’s not sure that NATO is really willing to go to war for the Baltic States, or even for Poland or Hungary.  He thinks his decade of undermining Western politics, and enticing Europe onto Russian energy, is enough to keep NATO at bay. 

Hitler thought the same thing.  In the final analysis, we cannot depend on the “reasonableness” of dictators to stop actions.  We can only make the vision crystal clear, that those actions will result in defeat.  But how Putin sees that depends pretty much on him, not us.  

That puts the fate of our world, and of a World War III is in his hands.  

All we can do is respond.

Ukraine Crisis

Lights Out

Out of Bounds

There are lots of places where it seems to be a bad idea to “wage war”.  Nursery schools and playgrounds ought to be “out of bounds” when it comes to bombs, artillery, and even ground fighting.  Two Ukrainian teenagers killed last week, hit by artillery fire, just playing soccer on a practice field.  Why target the places where it’s likely to find children, and put them in the line of fire?

There are the traditional places, the ones that the original Geneva Conventions agreed to keep safe:  hospitals and civilian shelters.  Remember the World War II movies with the white hospital ships with the big red crosses painted on their sides?  There was always outrage when torpedoes from either side accidentally found their mark. It happened far too frequently.

One way to try to protect targets was to move prisoners onto the site of enemy action.  It worked sometimes – though the American pilots held in Hiroshima weren’t so lucky.  It always came down to one of those “good of the many versus good of the few” things.  

“The rules” say don’t bomb churches, or historic sites . That didn’t work last week at the Babi Yar Memorial in Kyiv. The United States didn’t drop an atomic bomb on Kyoto, Japan, because of the cultural and historic importance of the city. 

Nuclear Playgrounds

It would seem logical that one of the highest “protected” priorities would be nuclear power plants. It’s just common sense: having a battle around a nuclear reactor is just a terrible idea.  Nuclear power plant safety is based around a series of protections from radioactive leaks, called “containment”.  Containment is literal – concrete structures designed to contain radiation leaks, and even some level of explosions that contain nuclear material.  

Bombs, bullets, shoulder mounted missiles:  all of those things can damage the containment barriers that keep the outside world safe from nuclear materials.

Even if the containment facilities aren’t damaged, the nuclear power process is based around keeping extremely hot (temperature) nuclear materials from literally becoming “too hot to handle”. If nuclear materials are allowed to interact too fully, they will reach a temperature when no material can contain then.  It’s called a “meltdown” – when the nuclear core becomes so hot it melts through everything holding it – going down into the ground.  

Contamination

That is, until it hits ground water, which explosively turns to steam and blow the core apart.  The blast spreads nuclear material across a widespread area.  How widespread?  When the Chernobyl reactor (just north of Kyiv) partially melted down, the area downwind was contaminated for a thousand miles.  Children in nearby Poland, and farther away Sweden, were given Iodine to protect their thyroids from radiation damage.

Nuclear plants have multiple “failsafe” systems that can either shield the nuclear materials to stop them from interacting, or cool a “too hot” nuclear core down.  Those systems are run from outside the “reactor” chamber, so that even if power from the nuclear reactor is lost, they can still interact with the core to stop a runaway meltdown.

All of that, the containment, the shielding processes, and the cooling processes are vulnerable to military attack.   In addition, nuclear plants require continuous supervision to keep them in balance.  It’s hard for the “second shift” to show up to work when a battle is being waged around the plant.

Lights Out

So why is it that the Russian Army is not only fighting around nuclear plants (including the scene of the world’s worst nuclear plant disaster, Chernobyl, just north of Kyiv) but targeting them?

Nuclear plants are huge industrial complexes. To build them, both road and railroad transportation is needed, capable of bringing in large machinery. That transportation ability makes it a prime staging area for troops: capture the plant, and capture the capability to use the transportation hub.

In addition, the five nuclear plants in Ukraine provide fifty percent of the nation’s electric power.  The Russian Army already controls two of those, and is approaching the third.  One way to gain control of Ukrainian life, is to control the power – and the Russian Army moving in position to do it.  It’s much harder for cities like Kharkiv and Kyiv to resist Russian occupation if they can’t see what they’re doing, or are required to use generator or battery power to maintain communication.

(Special credit to Clint Watts, former FBI agent, US Army officer and an MSNBC analyst for his lucid explanation of the military value of nuclear plants).

 Base of Operations

The Russian offensive clearly hasn’t gone as planned.  What was supposed to be a “blitzkrieg” attack to de-capitate the Ukrainian government by swift capture of Kyiv didn’t work out.  Part of this is because the Russians didn’t anticipate Ukrainian resistance, part because of surprising incompetence from Russian forces.  So Putin’s armies are regrouping, preparing for siege warfare against Kyiv, and a long drawn out fight against Ukrainian insurgents led by the charismatic Volodymyr Zelenskyy.  

They need a base of operations.  The Chernobyl site, and the newly captured Zaporizhzhia facility, are perfect (if you don’t mind exposing your soldiers to dangerous radiation levels, particularly at Chernobyl).  There’s lots of room, lots of power, and lots of transportation connections to the rest of the country.

And if you decide to – you can turn out ALL the lights.

Ukraine Crisis

Ante Up

Americans United

Here’s one you haven’t heard for a while – the vast majority of Americans are in favor of supporting Ukraine in their fight against the Russian invaders.  Eighty-three percent say they favor sanctions (CNN).  I’m not sure the “vast majority” of Americans have all been in favor of the same thing since – I don’t know, maybe sometime right after 9-11.  

There are extremists on both sides still.  After all, we are America in the 21st Century.  On one extreme, you hear those that say this is really an “internal” Russian problem, one that we can certainly deplore, but shouldn’t act on. This, by the way, is also the stance of the China’s President Xi.  

On the other side are the Americans, motivated by the incredible courage demonstrated by President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people, who want to launch direct attacks on the invading Russians.  That forty mile column of troops, trucks, and supplies stalled outside Kyiv provides a “fat” target.  They can envision the US Air Force A-10 Warthogs ranging up and down the column, expending every weapon and leaving a scene like the road out of Kuwait in the first Iraq War. 

Playing Poker

That’s a tempting strategy.  We could follow it, what used to be called “The John Wayne” school of diplomacy.  The US can be the Cavalry coming over the hill, saving the noble Ukrainian citizens from the cruel invader.   It would “call” Putin’s bluff; we would force him to deal with the full force of American might.

To further that poker analogy, Putin might do the “reasonable” thing, and fold his hand, going to the negotiating table to try to save face.  If that happened, the US would be the hero of the world.  Or, as we watch on all those World Poker Tournaments on late-night TV, Putin might go “All-in”.  In historic terms, that’s called World War III, with nuclear as well as conventional weapons “on the table”. 

The US has already drawn the “line in the sand” for Putin.  It’s at the border of the NATO countries, and we’ve not only promised to go “John Wayne” if he crosses that line – we’ve put US troops in the way.  So before we leave the table, remember that what’s happening in Ukraine is really only the first round.

On the Margin

Most reasonable people are not ready to go “John Wayne” yet.  We are willing to impose massive economic sanctions on Russia, shutting off their banks and oligarchs from the wealth they’ve accumulated in the thirty years since the fall of the Communist regime.  We are hoping that by squeezing Russia’s economy, the pressure from the citizens and from those oligarchs will force a stand-down from the current Russian strategy; an all-out destruction of the cities and people of Ukraine.

Politicians in the United States are trying to find a way to “play the margin” of the Ukraine crisis.  Since the majority of both political parties favor supporting Ukraine, they all have to fall generally in line with the Biden Administration actions.  Even Fox News can only complain that  “…Zelenskyy moves the world to tears, while Biden gets tepid reviews,” (Fox).  So they complain that the sanctions aren’t “tough enough”.  The margin they’ve found, is that the United States, the current world leader in petroleum production, still imports millions of barrels of Russian oil.

Russian Oil

To be clear, the US government isn’t buying Russian oil, but US companies are.  They do it because it’s cheaper than trying to ship US oil from where most of it is in Texas and Oklahoma to the coasts.  So, the “margin” narrative goes, it’s the Democrats fault, because Democrats are against pipelines, and pipelines could move that oil, and that’s why we have 7% of US oil imports coming from Russia (WSJ).

The response falls right into the Republican talking point – these “tree-hugging, AOC climate change believers” have stopped the US from producing more oil and gas, and that’s why we have to take Russian oil.   There’s some truth to that, but the reality is that it’s cheaper to import Russian oil for what US companies use it for, than to move American oil to the coasts.  Could we use other oil?  Absolutely, but there’s a cost.  And that cost will be at the local gas pump, with higher gas prices.  

And that becomes the Republican battle cry, “Higher Gas Prices because climate-changers are in charge!!!!”

In the Game

The Biden Administration has a crisis in Ukraine.  But they are also aware that there is a much longer term crisis in the environment, that isn’t going away because Vladimir Putin has lost his mind.  So they will hold their ground, and not spend valuable American dollars building more petroleum facilities, when those dollars can be spent for future renewable energy resources.  It’s likely that Biden will order a ban on Russian oil, and gas prices will go up.  Biden will release more oil from the US strategic reserves to blunt the pain, but in the final analysis, Americans will have to answer a question.

Do you want to support the Ukrainian people? 

Then here’s where you get to “ante up”.

Essays on the Ukraine Crisis

State of the Union

Call it Out

So let’s call this out up front – Joe Biden is not a great public speaker.  He’s no Barack Obama, or Bill Clinton, or even George W Bush.  Joe Biden stutters, he gets in a hurry, he steps on his own applause lines.  The last ten minutes of the State of the Union last night were bullet points, each important, but each squashed in the hurry of presentation.

And he said Ukrainians over and over and over again – correctly.  But once, he did said “Uranians”.  

It’s the same guy that got elected two years ago, the same Vice President and Senator who was known as “Mr. Gaffe”.  My right-wing friends can sling together Fecebook posts about how much he staggered, and the right-wing media will put together YouTube clips of his mistakes.  It’s inevitable in our toxic world.  

But they watched the State of the Union last night.

Embarrassing

They say it’s “embarrassing” that the President of the United States stutters.  Some claim that it’s a sign of some form of dementia.  I guess twelve year-old Joey Biden was demented when he was practicing in front of his mirror.  It all comes from the place where it’s “OK” to  make fun of disabled reporters, or the way people dress.  They are right about one thing, it is embarrassing, almost as embarrassing as Greene and Boebert – I’m embarrassed for them.

To bend another famous Biden gaffe – “it’s not a f**king big deal”.  President Biden communicated to the American people last night.  He demonstrated the leadership that united the free world (and some places that are not so free) against Russia.  And he went out of his way to NOT “push the buttons” that disunite us.

Back to Unity

There was no mention of the January 6th Insurrection last night, nor mention of “truck convoys”, either in Canada or Indianapolis (where the US version stayed last night, taking a break – probably so they could stay up and watch the speech).  In fact, there were very few references to the Trump Administration.  Biden made the point that when he arrived at the White House, NATO had to be rebuilt.  And he noted that Trump passed the trillion dollar tax cut that inevitably benefitted corporations and the wealthy. 

But the first and last thirds of his speech were about Americans working together.  With the exception of the extreme “Carlsonites”, most Americans, even Trump supporters, are backing Ukraine against Russia.  Sure there’s lots of niggling about what Biden should have done differently to prevent Russia’s actions (none of which would have worked) but the American people are “on-board” to support Ukraine.  

And at the end of his speech, the President went out of his way to press a “four point” plan that most Americans (and both Parties in Congress) can agree upon:

  •             beat the opioid epidemic
  •             take on mental health
  •             support veterans
  •             end cancer as we know it.

Who’s against these?

Go Get ‘Em

Joseph Biden, President of the United States, is leading a coalition of the world standing up to Russian aggression.  This is not the Eisenhower-Kennedy era:  the United States was not the default “leader of the free world” three years ago.  US leaders intentionally stepped back from that role, focusing on “America First”.  If we are searching for what might have emboldened Putin to take the apparently unhinged action of invading another country, that might be the first place to look. 

Joseph Biden, President of the United States, last year led America to create more jobs than any other year in history. And, as ugly as it is, he led the nation to the point where a world pandemic, that has cost almost a million American lives, now is to the point where, “We will continue to combat the virus as we do other diseases” (SOTU). Take off your mask and go to work.

Biden turned the standing joke of the previous Administration, “Infrastructure Week” into “the Infrastructure Decade”.   And – as he mentioned last night – he’s encouraging the development of “American” industry, including the twenty billion dollar Intel project, being built in New Albany, just down the road from me.  

Oh, and he just nominated the eminently qualified, first black woman to serve as a United States Supreme Court Justice.

That’s just some of what he’s done in the past year. 

Important 

He’s not a great speaker. Joe Biden is an older man, doing the toughest job in the world. If you are a liberal, you might be frustrated with all of the “lost opportunities” of the past year – like making life better for American workers and securing voting rights. Biden’s frustrated too. But in a political world where the Congress is just as divided as the Nation, and every Senator (and every four Congressmen) holds a veto on every piece of legislation – Biden’s getting a lot done.

And that’s a big f**king deal.