I was a child during World War II, and in the many years since–although the United States has rarely not been at war somewhere–I had come to believe that warfare would continue to be confined to localized conflicts and terrorist forays. The world economy had become too interrelated and interdependent for “old fashioned” state versus state conflicts.
Or so I thought.
Putin’s unprovoked attack on Ukraine certainly tests that theory. In a recent “Letter from an American,” Heather Cox Richardson suggested that, as a result of that attack, the world may be experiencing a “paradigm shift.”
The question, of course, is the direction of that shift.
Despite the naysayers on the Left, the traitorous crazies on the Right, and those in the media who have automatically defaulted to what Jennifer Rubin calls “partisan scorekeeping,” President Biden has thus far managed America’s response masterfully. Despite his predecessor’s constant attacks on NATO, he has strengthened that body and united the West (including, unbelievably, Switzerland) in opposition to Putin’s assault. As Rubin says,
We are all too familiar with the journalistic inclination to make every story into a political sporting contest denuded of moral content or policy substance. Who does this help? How did Biden fail? Aren’t the Republicans clever?
This sort of framing is unserious and unenlightening, failing to serve the cause of democracy, which is under assault around the globe. (If you think the media’s role is pure entertainment and coverage must be morally neutral in the struggle between democracies and totalitarian states, this critique may be mystifying.)
A real question is whether the American public’s short attention span will prevent us from (1) understanding the nature and extent of the ongoing global assault on democracy; and (2) displaying the staying power that will be required to reverse decades of decisions that have undermined and weakened that democracy.
As Rubin writes,
Let’s get some perspective. Russia’s invasion was decades in the making. Under three presidents, two Republican and one Democratic, we failed to address the threat Russia posed to democracy and the international order. President George W. Bush’s response to the invasion of Georgia in 2008 was entirely insufficient; President Barack Obama’s reaction to the seizure of Crimea in 2014 was equally feckless.
Then came Putin’s dream president, who could amplify Russian propaganda, divide the Western allies, abandon democratic principles, extort Ukraine in wartime, vilify the press and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump and Putin had a sort of call-and-response relationship, damaging democracies and bolstering autocrats.
No wonder Putin got the idea that he could erase national borders, stare down the West and reconstruct the Soviet empire. (If you think this all came about because Biden withdrew from Afghanistan, you’ve missed decades of Putin’s deep-seated paranoia and crazed ambition to reassemble the U.S.S.R.)
As I write this, the unprecedented sanctions imposed by a united West have already begun to bite.
The degree to which the global economy is interdependent means there will be negative consequences for the West, as well– we have become too dependent on Russian oil and gas– but sanctions are already having huge consequences for Russia’s economy and the fortunes of the oligarchs who surround Putin. Critics who minimize the effects of the sanctions that have been leveled simply don’t recognize the extent to which Russia’s feeble economy is dependent on continued integration with the broader world.
I have no crystal ball, and no idea how this immensely dangerous conflict will turn out. Putin’s none-too-veiled nuclear threat is unnerving–after all, here in America, we’ve seen how unpredictable an unhinged President can be, and how much damage one can inflict.
On the other hand, the bravery and determination of the Ukrainians who are faced with an unprovoked assault by a much more powerful neighbor has been heartening. The courage of Ukraine’s President, who has refused to run to safety–unlike Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his Ukrainian predecessor, Viktor Yanukovych– has been inspiring. Ukrainians fighting for genuine self-determination and political freedom are exposing the sniveling complaints of our various home-grown “freedom fighters” for the childish tantrums they are. ( Wearing a mask to protect your neighbors is not what actual tyranny looks like..)
America’s long enjoyment of relative peace and prosperity has allowed far too many of us to avoid growing up. If, as Richardson suggests, we are at a point of “paradigm shift,” I hope that shift is in the direction of maturity.
All those Putin loving “Christian warriors” need to actually read their bibles, especially 1 Corinthians 13:11. “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”
And for those who pray– put on a mask and pray for Ukraine and its people.
Absolutely!
Sheila, here’s the rest!
If I speak the languages of men and angels but do not have love I turn into a gong sounding or a symbol clashing. And if I have prophecy and know all secrets and all knowledge, and if I have all the faith as to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions and charity, and if I give up my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I am none the better. Love is patient, kind, love is not jealous, love does not show off, does not get inflated, does not shock people, does not look out for its own interests, does not get provoked, does not count its injuries, is not glad at wrong deed but glad to have the truth made glad, stands everything, believes everything, hope everything, holds out through everything. Love never drops away, but as for prophecies they will be superseded, as for languages they will come to a stop, as for knowledge it will be suspended, for it is in part that we know and in part that we prophesy. But when the complete comes the partial will be superseded, for it is in part that we know and in part that we prophesy. But when the complete comes the partial will be suspended. When I was a child I used a child’s language, took a child’s views, made a child’s calculations, since I became a man I have suspended the child’s ways. For we see now by a metal mirror as a puzzle to be guessed at, but then face to face I know in part, but when I shall be aware in the same way as he was aware of me. And I know there remain faith, hope, love, these three. And the greatest of these is love.
Lots of great propaganda is being slung, but this one is a beauty: “we failed to address the threat Russia posed to democracy and the international order.”
That is a remarkable statement considering the trillion-dollar Pentagon budget – unless you’ve been hibernating under a rock!
Even though our media doesn’t keep a score of all our violations against treaties and such, it doesn’t mean Russia and China are baffled. I use journalists from all around the world for perspective. Asia Times has some of the best journalists in the world. Russia Today even has great journalists on occasion.
The point is we’ve been so conditioned by media bs that we have lost our critical thinking skills. We discuss this often on this blog, but our default mode of thinking is nationalistic or flag-hugging when an international event occurs. This has been conditioned very early unless the parents know better, which most do not.
Watching otherwise literate people posting war propaganda on social media has been an exciting spectacle to watch. Go Team USA!! Russia is BAD!!
I will wait for factual coverage of Russian operations, including civilian casualties, to see how they compare to US invasions in foreign lands.
Oh, really bad news for Putin is Pennsylvania is clearing shelves of Russian vodka. #OUCH
This whole scripture here,
Basically was talking about the infancy of the Christian congregation. Where they were miraculously speaking in tongues in its infancy. But that was just to get the law of Christ out to the Nations which did not speak Hebrew for the most part. Or Aramaic, or Greek. The tongues stopped when the last apostle, John, died. Those speaking in tongues today, are not speaking any sort of known language. And definitely not any language that was spoken back in the Christian congregations infancy anywhere in the world.
This also talks about love, that love does not end, it does not become obsolete. And to emulate God, you have to love your fellow man. Even your enemy! In all of the wars that mankind has fought, has he ever been able to kill his way to love? To win hearts? Killing and war is the antithesis to love.
It also talks about prophecies ending, because those prophecies would become completely understood at the time of fulfillment. We have the main gist of prophecies, but the nuance, the small things, specific order, is still hazy as in looking at oneself in a metal mirror.
At the end, the apostle Paul mentioned that he was accurately known. Known by God. And, he alluded to the fact that he would accurately know God in the future.
We do love our friends in the Ukraine, and would gladly scoop them up and bring them home here.
Good morning Todd!🥱😁
Putin’s unprovoked, but NOT unexpected, invasion of Ukraine was watched by the world as day after day media reports kept us aware of what was coming. We watch now as that small nation with a strong leader battles against the odds against them as Putin’s Russian military continues his advancement, being kept to a crawl by the brave Ukrainians, many average people who armed themselves to join their military in defense of their lives and their country. I find myself wondering if we here in America could find the heart and the strength to end racism, bigotry, antisemitism and fighting one another to fight to save this country. So far, not even the Covid-19 Pandemic has brought us together to protect ourselves and our families as hundreds of thousands have died and the Pandemic marches on.
Watching the 4:00 a.m. CNN news this morning it appears that the world, on this 6th day of Ukraine’s invasion, are coming together against Putin and Russia. The CNN interview with the President of Lithuania was eye opening. Some of Putin’s own oligarchs are now speaking against him along with thousands of Russian citizens. Will Putin escalate to prove whatever point he is trying to make or will he see he is spearheading the destruction of the Russian economy and that winning in Ukraine will give him a only a destructed country and dead bodies. President Zelensky has vowed to stay with his family and die if it comes to that end. Trump continues applauding himself and Putin in his speeches and rallies; he is putting Republicans in the same position in the world view, turning against any and all who continue to support Putin and Russia. We can only hope and pray the world recognizes President Biden’s valiant efforts to undo the diplomatic damage Trump wrought during his long four year reign of insanity and hate. We need our own pivot point here at home; the upcoming Primary Elections are our first opportunity to begin cleaning House and Senate of Trumpism, hatred and lies. Mitch McConnell spoke out against the white supremacists remaining in Congress and those campaigning to add to their numbers. Do his words have meaning or are they a meaningless public relations attempt to get Republican votes?
Rubin stated; “…we failed to address the threat Russia posed to democracy and the international order.” We continue failing to address the Trump/Russian duo and the internal threat to our own government and nation continues unabated.
“And for those who pray– put on a mask and pray for Ukraine and its people.”
Very good summary, Sheila. Yes, Russia makes few things for the world market. Vodka, military hardware and gas and oil. That’s about it. Will the oligarchs rebel and come to the rest of the world on bended knees after they dispose of THEIR madman? Maybe. That would be the endgame that saves Russia and its people from having to endure yet another evil and cruel leader. Maybe they’ll learn that democracy (not ours today) in their eyes and methods will create leaders like Navalny who will actually lead for the people.
Tactical nukes used by Russia on Ukraine – if he does that – will be a paradigm shift, alright. It will be a shift to extinction, because it WILL escalate. North Korea will see that as an enablement to use them on South Korea. We will retaliate. Russia will defend North Korea and away we go to the great by-and-by.
Cynical? You bet. How else can it end if Putin opens that door? Like his sack buddy Trump, Putin lacks a moral compass. It’s all zero sum to these bastards. The good news is that the world is uniting as perhaps never before to squash the Russian perfidy. Let’s hope the sane parts don’t lose their nerve as the Ukrainians fight for their lives and country.
Too bad thoughts and prayers don’t stop madmen, bombs and bullets.
Two things:
The oligarchs might feel the pain, but they owe everything they have to Putin. They know that, if they complain, they will be the next to experience the poison that nearly took down Navalny.
While I applaud the willingness of the Eastern European countries to accept refugees from Ukraine, I am less than heartened by the simple fact that those refugees are over 99% white. Racism isn’t going anywhere in the near term.
Vernon, Good morning!
I would imagine there are bigger things afoot than just a war now. It seems there definitely is a paradigm shift going against these right-wing autocratic religious fanaticists. The pain of the Second World War is still pretty raw in Europe. And the memory of Hitler hasn’t really faded that much, considering the Nazis constantly try to reconstitute themselves. I think this is a change that’s going to even be more radical than the second world war, and it’s going to catch a lot of people by surprise! They say Putin doesn’t seem like he’s in control of himself? Well, scripture states that the men of lawlessness are going to be pulled to their destruction like they have hooks in their jaws.
Putin has been hooked, along with some of the other satellites such as Belarus. Will they wriggle off the hook? And let’s not forget the implications looking at China. Because you best believe they are watching. North Korea anyone?
JoAnn,
Very very good points this morning!
Good morning, John!
Michael Tracy writes:
“For the chorus of people who will fulminate for the rest of their lives that any consideration of US culpability in this fiasco is somehow an “apology” for Putin, or a denial of his agency, or any other assorted nonsense: feel free to live in your black-and-white moral universe where tales of Good versus Evil always result in the princess being rescued by the knight, or whichever other comforting myths you need to tell yourself. The US deliberately chose — across administrations of both parties — to subsidize and “train” Ukraine’s military, flood the country with weapons, and otherwise assume the role of primary foreign sponsor. That’s the indisputable reality. Last week, Putin called Ukraine a “colony” or “puppet” of the US. Why do you think everyone from Hunter Biden to Rudy Giuliani correctly ascertained that they could secure huge sums of money from shady Ukrainian financial interests for doing next to nothing, other than having prominent political connections in the US?
So of course it was to the US that Russia’s demands for written “security guarantees” were officially submitted last December — not to China, or the EU, or Botswana, or anyone else. They were submitted to the US. Hence the clear-as-day centrality of the US in the progression of this conflict — a fact which now gets bizarrely denied on the regular by political-blackmailers who scream that there is absolutely no acceptable response to this invasion other than to condemn Putin about 15 billion times (even if you’ve already done so, emphatically). There is a certain point when these endless calls for condemnation function as nothing more than a coercive disciplinary tactic to preclude any further debate, and that point has arrived.”
https://mtracey.substack.com/p/why-wouldnt-the-us-negotiate-with?
Good morning, John. All true. Humans continue to defy the concept of governance of groups larger than 25.
Copied and pasted from Yahoo News; “The Guardian spoke with a 24-year-old medical student from Kenya named Emily, who said she had to wait several extra hours to enter Poland because Ukrainian nationals were prioritized. She was able to board a bus to a hotel near Warsaw offering free lodging, but was denied a room and told they are “meant only for Ukrainians.” She offered to pay for a room, Emily told The Guardian, but was again told no. Her family contacted an acquaintance in Poland and they found accommodations for Emily, who only has permission to stay in Poland for 15 days.”
Peggy; all foreigners in Ukraine were told to evacuate before the invasion so prioritizing Ukrainian nationals should not be a surprise. Ukraine has it’s racial problems as do all countries; the film I saw with the one Black male willing to talk to media was at a train station where women and children were boarding the train, yes they were white. The 2-4 white men in the crowd were there safely seeing their families boarding the train to escape. NOT excusing what appears to be racism but wonder how many white foreigners were also forced to wait?
John Sorg; thank you!
Todd; the Hunter Biden and Rudy Giuliani issues were under the corrupt administration during the previous Ukraine President. Rudy’s continuing corruption attempts regarding new President Zelensky were dealt with in Trump’s first impeachment which Republicans totally ignored and left him in the White House. We are still dealing with those issues and the people involved; those who continue supporting him and those who testified, with documented facts, against Trump and are working with the January 6th Investigation Committee.
Those “negative consequences” that Sheila mentions indicate that the “holy grail” of corporate America has a dark side. Economic globalization benefits large corporations, but the linkages carry some baggage with them for a nation’s economy.
Everything I have read suggests that the oligarchs are just fine. No one is touching their big London houses and NYC sky apartments. Their money is squirreled away in dark, offshore accounts protected by others like them. And, of course, Putin is one of them.
Perhaps, the real opportunity here is for the Russian people to really rise up…
A few thoughts about the war for Ukraine.
The massive sanctions against Russia appear to this old woman to have brought a new form of warfare to the scene. It reminds me of the history lesson of the Battle of Agincourt when the greatly outnumbered British brought to the battlefield against the overwhelming numbers of French their new weapon the long bow. I believe we are seeing a new weapon on the battlefield… collective massive international economic sanctions.
While the United States does not have soldiers in the field we are indeed at war with Russia and need to think that way. There will be serious sacrifices that all of us are going to have to make: high fuel prices, inflation and instability in the market place to name a few. No whining please, Karen.
We all need to adopt a “quiet resolve” during this crisis. I don’t want to hear “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming” . I had enough of that kind of hysterics during my childhood in the 50s practicing hiding under my desk at school.
Chris Hedges has a different way of looking at the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here is what he says:
“Chris Hedges: I was there for the end of the Cold War — and we all knew how peace could collapse. We didn’t stop it
Chris Hedges and ScheerPost February 27, 2022
I was in Eastern Europe in 1989, reporting on the revolutions that overthrew the ossified communist dictatorships that led to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It was a time of hope. NATO, with the breakup of the Soviet empire, became obsolete. President Mikhail Gorbachev reached out to Washington and Europe to build a new security pact that would include Russia. Secretary of State James Baker, along with West German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, assured the Soviet leader that if Germany were unified NATO would not be extended beyond the new borders. The commitment not to expand NATO, also made by Britain and France, appeared to herald a new global order. We saw the peace dividend dangled before us, the promise that the massive expenditures on weapons that had characterized the Cold War would be converted into expenditures on social programs and infrastructures that had long been neglected to feed the insatiable appetite of the military.
There was a near universal understanding among diplomats and political leaders at the time that any attempt to expand NATO was foolish, an unwarranted provocation against Russia that would obliterate the ties and bonds that happily emerged at the end of the Cold War.
How naive we were. The war industry did not intend to shrink its power or its profits. It set out almost immediately to recruit the former Communist bloc countries into the European Union and NATO. Countries that joined NATO, which now include Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and North Macedonia, were forced to reconfigure their militaries, often through hefty loans, to become compatible with NATO military hardware.
There would be no peace dividend. The expansion of NATO swiftly became a multi-billion-dollar bonanza for the corporations that had profited from the Cold War. (Poland, for example, just agreed to spend $6 billion on M1 Abrams tanks and other U.S. military equipment.) If Russia would not acquiesce to again being the enemy, then Russia would be pressured into becoming the enemy. And here we are: On the brink of another Cold War, one from which only the war industry will profit while, as W.H. Auden wrote, the little children die in the streets.
The consequences of pushing NATO up to Russia’s western borders — there is now a NATO missile base in Poland, 100 miles from the Russian frontier — were well known to policy makers. Yet they did it anyway. It made no geopolitical sense. But it made commercial sense. War, after all, is a business, a very lucrative one. It is why we spent two decades in Afghanistan although there was near universal consensus after a few years of fruitless fighting that we had waded into a quagmire we could never win.
In a classified diplomatic cable obtained and released by WikiLeaks, dated Feb. 1, 2008, which was written from Moscow and addressed to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the NATO-European Union Cooperative, the National Security Council, the Russia Moscow Political Collective, the secretary of defense and the secretary of state, there was an unequivocal understanding that expanding NATO risked an eventual conflict with Russia, especially over Ukraine:
Not only does Russia perceive encirclement [by NATO], and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests. Experts tell us that Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face. … Dmitri Trenin, Deputy Director of the Carnegie Moscow Center, expressed concern that Ukraine was, in the long-term, the most potentially destabilizing factor in U.S.-Russian relations, given the level of emotion and neuralgia triggered by its quest for NATO membership. … Because membership remained divisive in Ukrainian domestic politics, it created an opening for Russian intervention. Trenin expressed concern that elements within the Russian establishment would be encouraged to meddle, stimulating U.S. overt encouragement of opposing political forces, and leaving the U.S. and Russia in a classic confrontational posture.
Theresa, Good observation. In a global world maybe we are seeing a new weapon, but it is more like a two edged sword. Sanctions can hurt both ways. Closing European airspace to Russia caused Russia to close it’s airspace, cutting off Europe from many great circle routes (over the north pole) to Asia.
The one big change we could have made to cut off the flow of dollars to Russia was to enact the financial reforms in Biden’s agenda. With the banking reforms in the 2000’s US and England have become money laundering havens where shell corporations are formed and the only name on the document is the lawyer that set them up. We have no idea how much Russian money flows into the US right now.
With Putin so unhinged right now, and US has always been the bogey man of his propaganda, the US has to tread very carefully in any moves it makes. The misinformation machine in Russia is state run and I suspect that there are a fair number of Russian that don’t know what to believe, and any overt moves by the US would give Putin the signal to start slinging nuclear weapons.
It seems that the former satellite Russian were complety justified in jumping onto the NATO bandwagon. They knew the sleeping bear in the backyard better than most armchair American diplomats.
Every means of solving global conflict by competition is costly. What varies is the measure of that expense. Russia by choice and the Ukraine by force are competing militarily at the expense of Russia’s military and Ukrainian homeland and people. NATO’s masterful response is to enter the competition economically by risking their economies versus the Russian economy. The result is to make Russian colonialism so costly that it is becoming an unwise venture.
What the competition is now based on is Putin’s sanity and the madness of his having torn down guardrails out of paranoia.
What will this lesson teach the world in terms of future conflicts?
Larry – Diplomatic mistakes made by Kissinger and others are hardly anything new in the world of real politick. Take Chamberlain in Munich in 1938, for instance. Your retrospective looks at what could have been are correct and make our choice of responses at the time look bad in the rear view mirror, a mirror that was not available to us at the time of the Soviet breakup.
Yes, our military budget is bloated, but since our “sphere of influence” as the world’s cop covers the globe an argument can be made that much of such excess spending is in reality foreign aid to prop up friendly allies, perhaps allies due to our largesse. Russia, on the other hand and with its weak economy, cannot afford to compete with us militarily but an argument can similarly be made that next door Ukraine is within their sphere of influence though, like us with our NATO protection from Russian influence, Russia in the aftermath of WW II with its occupation of East Germany, Poland and several other buffer countries cannot be heard to complain. We are not the only ones who have no rear view mirror for corrections of mistakes made, but we are where we are, so now what?
I’m no diplomat and I have no rear view mirror but I think there is a way out of this crisis manufactured by Putin today. I don’t know what it is but there has to be a way forward for diplomats on both sides to assure the world that their differences can and will be settled short of violence, which too often settles nothing.
I can even foresee the seeming impossibility that current NATO members and Russia will someday be allies to contain China and Xi or his successor(s). Ridiculous? Can’t be done, you say? That’s the response I would have given when I was in WW II and told then that Germany and Japan would be our postwar allies in a world of shifting alliances. I had no rear view mirror, and neither did Washington, Madison and Jefferson, who in 1776 would never have guessed that we would be allies of England in forthcoming wars.
My old World Politics professor at university insisted on calling us homo sapiens “homo saps” and defined a diplomat as “an honest man, sent abroad to lie for his country.” His comic relief with a smile in a world of shifting alliances may have been on to something, but let’s prove him wrong.
“Oh, really bad news for Putin is Pennsylvania is clearing shelves of Russian vodka. #OUCH” Good one, John.
Yes, Peggy, If Russia’s trump pulls out all the stops on nuclear weapons (Trump, in 2016: ” If we have nuclear weapons, why don’ t we use them?”)
“Then came Putin’s dream president, who could amplify Russian propaganda, divide the Western allies, abandon democratic principles, extort Ukraine in wartime, vilify the press and interrupt the peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump and Putin had a sort of call-and-response relationship, damaging democracies and bolstering autocrats.”
Still, TFG can go on stage at CPAC and lie his ass off, to, I’m sure, much applause. But, I digress.
Oh, what a shame that our Proud Boys, and their congress storming buddies are so caught up in the Deep State
dragnet, here. Otherwise, I’m sure they’d all be quickly arranging to fly to Ukraine, to fight for its Democracy…but,
then again, Zelensky is Jewish. Ah, so, Putin is their man, like Mr. Orange Dumbness, secretly fighting the
International Jewish World Conspiracy! Yeah, right next to Babba Yar! How fitting.
Just an FYI, my racism comments were more regarding the positions of those same Eastern European countries in the face of evacuations from Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, and other parts of Africa. War does not discriminate, but sanctuary apparently does.
If you pontificate without mentioning nuclear weapons and nuclear winter, I’ll dismiss your thoughts.
You know you messed up BIG when Switzerland takes a side.
I checked my cable provider and they have removed RT (Russia Today channel) from broadcasting here. Is that shutting down free speech or shutting down terrorists? My mobile company sent me a text that all calls to and from Ukraine are free right now. The banks have frozen 1 trillion dollars of Russian money here.
I’ve never lived this close (1000 miles) to the front lines of a 20th century war by a madman.
Good times.
If the financial world wide pressure get bad enough, and Putin gets crazy enough, I predict that Putin will have a sudden health crisis and somebody else will be put in charge. I think that kind of thing has happened in the past with Russian leaders.
One thing I’d like to point out on behalf of President Obama. He was given an absolute financial disaster to contend with and, at every point, he was sabotaged by the Republicans. He could only deal with so much. I think President Biden, is likewise, doing an unbelievably great job. Amazing. Bravo.
Dan – I hope you are right. My fear is not nuclear war, it is us cheering for the brave, DEAD, Ukrainians, as Putin switches to massive bombing because he isn’t doing so will with his ground war, and his hit squads take out Ukrainian officials.
Pray – and donate to refugee relief
Peggy Hannon, I have noticed the overwhelming embrace of the European refugees, as it should be.
Why are our here, dark skinned refugees, just as terrified not embraced as well?
In the beginning humans were dark skinned and as humans migrated north they gradually lightened in skin color. I would suggest that if scientists looked deep enough they would find all of us possess hints of dark skin in our dna/rna.
Our racism is fabricated and needs to be thrown away.