About Time

The Republican House of Representatives, the chief engine of misgovernment and Russian sympathy in the United States, has finally passed a hefty aid bill, $60 billion, for Ukraine, with the bulk of its support coming from the Democratic Party. Whether it is too late—the sum is no little—remains to be seen, but it is late in coming. The Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson had this to say about the aid bill, “Providing lethal aid to Ukraine right now is critically important. . . . I really do believe the intel in the briefings that we’ve gotten. I believe Xi (Jinping) and Vladimir Putin and Iran really are an axis of evil. I think they’re in coordination on this. I think that Vladimir Putin would continue to march through Europe if he were allowed.” To any thinking person paying attention, this was true months ago, as it was two years ago when Putin invaded Ukraine, so Speaker Johnson’s words ring disingenuously in my ears, but I am happy to learn that Americans can do the right thing, eventually, even when dragged kicking and screaming to do it.

Farewell, Blue Helmet

My government continues to fiddle while Kyiv burns, again. Shameful. We have become shameless in our cowardice and sycophancy, and by we, of course, I mean the Republican Party. While I have always gravitated toward the term and concept of republicanism, small r—someone concerned for the common good of one’s public, one’s people—the current party of that name is republican in name only, even a contradiction in terms, and seems to exist now merely for the interest and ego-stroking of its mango-faced demagogue and for the bad of virtually everyone else—except Putin. It is terrible that the fate of the courageous people of Ukraine may depend upon the likes of a people that we are become, feckless as the nights are long and cold in winter.

Getting it Together

The world’s attention span in this media age is ridiculously short and specious. After less than two years of life and death struggle against the forces of a craven, cynical, and stoat-faced despot, Ukraine finds itself in danger of lost interest and sympathy, support and resources. Truckers in Poland and Slovakia and Russian assets in the United States—i.e. the Republican Party—have placed their own self-interests, particularly selfish ones, ahead of not only the dire existential needs of Ukraine, but ahead of the larger interests of Europe and the West. Shameful, discouraging but not altogether surprising. Human nature can be frail, easily distracted and divided, even with the noble example of the Ukrainian people available to us daily. To my fellow Americans and friends in Poland, I ask, “Can we get our shit together?” To Ukraine, I offer the hopeful Churchillian observation that America will do the right thing—after it has tried everything else.     

Fighting Ukraine

Five thousand miles from Kyiv, one cannot know with any kind of certainty how things are going in the war. I read daily, but not exhaustively, updates on the offensive, reports of modest gains, of casualties, and the shortage of ammunition. That Putin might hang on and the war become a long one should come as no surprise to anyone with any knowledge of history. Things always drag on longer than expected. Lightning victory—I cannot name one offhand, and I have read a lot of history. A war being fought in trenches will be slow going. Which is why the friends and allies of Ukraine must remember to be patient. The sharing of materiel and treasure is as nothing compared to the sacrifices Ukrainians make daily, nightly, hourly. We should honor their heroic example, their perseverance, with our patience and continued support.

Some weeks ago I read Edith Wharton’s account of France at the outset of World War I, Fighting France. “War is the greatest of paradoxes,” she wrote, “the most senseless and disheartening of human retrogressions, and yet the stimulant of qualities of soul which, in every race, can seemingly find no other renewal.” If your motives are noble, national self-defense among them, you are ennobled. The qualities of soul on exhibit in Kyiv and Bakhmut and Robotyne, on the streets, in the trenches, and aloft on the wings of drones—courage, ingenuity, resilience—deserve our fullest appreciation.  

Epigram, epitaph

 When you strike at the tyrant, you must kill.

Knives Out

A dagger rightfully belongs in the back of a tyrant.

Zdrowaś Maryjo

It would appear that the long-awaited Ukrainian counter-offensive has begun. The fortunes of battle being unsure, concerned old men in distant countries can mostly pray and read the news in modesty and with hope. It is one of those rare instances in which we know who is deserving of our prayers.