By I had planned to write a blog post this morning about settling in to the new routine in the new house, but with all that is happening on the global stage, that seems a bit frivolous. Sure, my day-to-day existence continues onward, as the epicenter of the current global crisis is far away and currently will little impact that routine.
But it is sobering to see the destruction that modern weapons of war are capable of when waged against a democratic country mostly at peace, especially with tensions so high here at home in a US divided along idealogic and political divides that grow deeper each year.
Honestly, I had expected a second civil war here at home before I’d anticipated the start of what could become WWIII. Maybe that was naive of me, or merely typically US-focused. We do have an issue seeing beyond our own borders at times, and I am as guilty of that as anyone, particularly now.
I’ve always been a fan of dystopian, post-WWIII stories, but I have no desire to actually live in such a story. I’m torn in my thinking regarding the US response. I believe on one hand that we must show a strong, united front in support of Ukraine as our ally, but I have no desire to commit our troops to engagement, particularly after we finally withdrew from Afghanistan.
I’m not sure how well sanctions will work against someone like Putin, who does not care one tiny iota about the Russian people and will likely let them freeze and starve while he throws his temper tantrum over a country that fought to cut itself free of the Soviet Union in the first place.
I am also strongly anti-bully, and Putin here is exactly that. He’s a bully on the global stage and he’s throwing the full weight of the Russian military at a smaller country simply because he can. I don’t have any answers here, I’ll leave that in the hands of our elected and military officials who have much deeper knowledge than I do on the subject.
I have a candle lit on my altar today for the people of Ukraine. May the gods protect them. And you, Readers.
Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash
Natalie J Case 