Read a column by Gwynne Dyer, yesterday's paper. He believes the   
    Ukraine crisis won't lead to WWIII. His theory is, nobody is   
    going to push it that far, the last two world wars taught them   
    the lesson, it's not worth it.   
      
    As he said, "That is why, even as Russian tanks drive right up   
    to Ukraine's eastern borders, and the Ukrainian army prepares to   
    die in a fight it knows it would lose, nobody else in europe is   
    getting ready for war. If the Russians want part or all of   
    Ukraine, they can have it-and pay the long term price for taking   
    it, which would be very high. But nothing in Eurpoe is worth   
    blowing all of Europe up for."   
      
    I wonder about that. I wonder if, maybe, he's got it backwards.   
    I wonder if the result of doing nothing might not be what leads   
    to the war nobody wants.   
      
    We have long been told that Hitler might have been stopped,   
    probably would have been stopped, if the other nations had   
    stepped in with his first aggression against the Sudentenland,   
    against Austria, against those who could not defend themselves.   
      
    What makes anyone think Putin is any less than Hitler?   
      
    When Obama declared he was pulling our troops out of Afghanistan   
    and Iraq the Republicans ranted and raved about how no one would   
    ever trust us, because we abandoned an ally. Yet the governments   
    of Iraq and Afghanistan were never allies, they were client   
    states and corrupt in the extreme. Their fight is internal, even   
    the outside influences would be no threat at all if those   
    governments had the support of the people.   
      
    No matter what the status of the Ukraine and it's government,   
    Russia is clearly an outside invader. Failing to come to their   
    aid would be a clear sign to Putin that the West really is too   
    weak to stop him. Not too militarily weak, on that we outweigh   
    them in spade, but too weak morally.   
      
    That may yet be the factor that gives us the war no one wants.   
      
      
      
   BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn   
      
   ... No one can fix everything, everyone can contribute to fixing something.   
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