What’s haunting me

Ihave debated long and hard about this column. I may not submit it to the paper, but I decided I had to write it. Maybe putting it down on paper can be a cathartic for my weary soul. All I know is I just can’t seem to let it go. I have talked to friends about it. I have prayed about it. Perhaps it is haunting you, as well.

The problem is the war in Ukraine. It hurts me to my very core. I do not want this article to be political. To the extent possible, I try to keep those things out of my column. If you perceive that it is political, I apologize.

What is eating at me is the same way I would feel if I were out in public somewhere and a big guy was beating the heck out of a little guy and a crowd gathered round and just watched it happen. The question becomes, how long does it have to go on before somebody takes some decisive action? Do we have to wait until the little guy is a bloody pulp before somebody steps up? Or, heaven forbid, do we just wait for the big guy to quit beating on the little guy, take his wallet and his shoes and walk away?

Putin is destroying the entire country of Ukraine. What people are le there will have nothing to start over with, even if Putin pulls his soldiers out. They are shelling and bombing residential areas, hospitals, churches and apartment buildings. It is a campaign of terror, orchestrated by a terrorist. And the world’s response is to declare that Putin is a war criminal. It seems to me that hurts him about as much as the sanctions that have been imposed. I applaud the world’s leaders for what they have done so far. It does not appear to have been enough.

I have said before that nobody wants a shooting war with Russia, but answer this for me: When did the airspace over Ukraine become Russian airspace? The airspace over Ukraine belongs to Ukraine and if they want any country to come in and help them protect their airspace, how is that a shooting war with Russia? And what is so wrong with having Poland give Ukraine a handful of jet ghters? It pains me to write this but it seems to me that Putin has his hands around the throat of an apathetic world.

I am not suggesting U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine. But I am talking about gathering some of our allies and doing something more than imposing sanctions and standing around wringing our hands while Putin’s army kills every last woman, child and man in Ukraine. How can the freedomloving people of the world stand to look at themselves in the mirror if they allow these atrocities to continue?

In my last column, I asked that you pray for all the people of Ukraine. I ask that again. And while I think it is against my religion to pray for something bad to happen to anyone, friend or foe, I shall wait with anxious and hopeful expectation for the wrath and the mighty hand of all that is good in this world to make things right for all the people of Ukraine. Remember Crimea.

From the song, “If I Were Free”: This weary world has had its ll

Of talk of war on every hill.

The time has come for peaceful days, And peaceful men of peaceful ways.