In a recent Daily Post column, I expressed my opposition to US troops getting involved in the fighting in Ukraine.
Since the beginning of the Russian invasion, I’ve received a couple of e-mails calling me a traitor for that column. I don’t usually respond to such, especially when they arrive under social media pseudonyms. But in this case, I will try to dumb this down for them.
While I don’t want American military involved in the fighting, I never said I support the Russians. That distinction is apparently too subtle for my critics.
If you read any European history, such as Norman Davies’ “Europe: A History”, Simon Jenkins’ “Short History of Europe: Pericles to Putin”, or (for recent grads of American higher education) there is “European History for Dummies”…
…you’ll recognize a recurring theme. Europeans have always been at war, slaughtering each other about something. Territory, ethnicity, religion — take your pick.
So I’m not enthusiastic about sending our sons and daughters into the maelstrom of one tribe of Slavs (Russians) invading the territory of another tribe of Slavs (Ukrainians) to settle a feud that has been going on for centuries.
Biden’s press secretary, Jan Psaki, tells us that our intervening into this tribal war is necessary to preserve “American values”. The only American value I can see we’d be preserving is our “military-industrial complex” that will profit from our intervention.
Besides, it doesn’t look like the Ukrainians need our troops. So far they are doing pretty well without our boots being on the ground by showing what motivated, armed citizens can do even against a modern military.
Keep that in mind the next time you hear someone who wants to take AR-15’s away from Americans. Those of us who own them do so for this very reason. To defend ourselves against tyranny — even from our own government if necessary.
The gun-grabbers claim we would never be able to stand up against the U.S. military if it came to that, so why should we have AR-15s? Ask the Ukrainians armed with AK-47s who, so far, have fought the Russian army literally to a standstill. There are not near as many armed Ukrainians as armed Americans. But, again if you know Ukrainian history, their resistance is not surprising.
After the Soviets retook it from the Germans in 1944, the Ukrainians continued guerilla warfare against the Russians for another decade. And that was when Ukraine was surrounded by Soviet block countries. Now it will be a Ukrainian insurgency supplied from across the borders of Poland, Hungary and Romania – three countries with no love lost for the Russians.
The United States learned that brutal lesson in Vietnam when insurgents were supplied from, and could escape into, Laos and Cambodia. The Russians supplied the North Vietnamese in that war, now we can get some payback by supplying the Ukrainian insurgency.
If the Russians manage to take Ukraine, which at this point is no certainty, they will be bled white trying to hold on to it. The Russians should have learned that lesson from invading Afghanistan — a quagmire which destroyed the Russian economy and was a major factor on the fall of the Soviet Union.
The people in eastern Europe have been killing each other for millennia. I don’t want to see dead Ukrainians. But better them dying to defend their country, than Americans. If that makes me a traitor … well, I refer you to this…
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.