Sunday Feb. 26, 2023

As of Friday, the war in Ukraine has been going on for one year. It seems to me this is the first war of its kind – a World War fought within a single country.
I call it a “world war” because of the number of countries involved. NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, currently has 30 member nations. And they’re all backing Ukraine, one way or another.
Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty requires signatories to agree: “An armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all…if such an armed attack occurs, each of them… will assist the Party or Parties so attacked by taking … such action as it deems necessary, including the use of armed force…”.
Now, it should be noted that Ukraine is not a member of NATO, yet, so the 30 members are not contractually obligated to defend it. But U.S. President Joe Biden made clear that this is HIS war against Russia, and he will not back down.
Theoretically, the other side consists only of Russia. But Iran is shipping weaponry to the Russian side, the same way the U.S. feeds weapons to Ukrainian forces. Belorussia supports Russia. Russia may be tapping the central Asian “…stans” for foot soldiers. And no one knows what China might be doing.
That’s as many countries as were involved in either of the two official World Wars.
The first World War was fought mostly among NATO countries, but that was still enough to call it a “world war.”
World War II spread more widely, thanks to Japan’s involvement in the Pacific and south-east Asia. But many of the European countries were non-combatants, having been conquered and subdued by Germany.

Ego trip
The current war, it seems to me, is Vladimir Putin’s retaliation for Ukraine electing a media comedian as president, replacing Petro Poroshenko, an oligarch more sympathetic to Putin.
Ukraine elected Volodomyr Zelenskyy instead. They might as well have smacked Putin in the face with a cream pie.
Putin doesn’t take humiliation lightly.
So now we have a world war taking place within defined boundaries. It’s like confining the Hatfields and the McCoy’s to a sandbox.
So far, everyone but Ukraine has gotten off lightly. Russia has not had a single war death on Russian soil. Economic sanctions yes. But the effect on Russian residents has been far different from Hitler’s midwinter march across central Russia.
The U.S., similarly, has not lost a single soldier. Indeed, until the September 11 blitzing of the World Trade Center, war has not killed a single U.S. citizen on its own soil since the war of 1812.
Nor have any other NATO allies been hit directly.
But the Ukrainian sandbox looks worse than Turkey after two earthquakes.

Who benefits?
It makes me wonder why nations resort to war, anyway.
No one ever wins a war. There are always unnecessary deaths. Destruction of property. Loss of food production.
So who actually benefits from a war?
Short answer – no one.
(Except former General/President Eisenhower’s “military/industrial complex.”)
The winning leader claims bragging rights – at the price of thousands of his loyal citizens. The losing leader faces humiliation at best, suicide or execution at worst.
The lands over which the battles were fought will take generations to recover.
Nature itself may never recover. It will simply find a way to work around the devastation.
Both history and experience tell us that war is a dumb, stupid, thoughtless way to solve problems. And yet nations keep resorting to wars to settle disputes.
There have been some remarkably stupid wars. In 1739, the British waged war against Spain, ostensibly over Spain cutting off the ear of British trader Robert Jenkins, eight years before. As recently as 1925, Greece and Bulgari went to war over a Greek soldier’s dog that strayed into Bulgarian territory.
Putin called his invasion a “special military operation.” Oh, that’s all right then.
Great or small, righteous or petty, wars never solve problems. They just bury animosities a little deeper.
Some years ago, I researched several so-called Peace Institutes. I found only one that actually studied peace. The rest all studied wars: how they started, how they were fought, with what weapons and tactics, who won and why…
As if you could create peace by studying war. Which makes as much sense as studying porn to promote chastity.
It should be obvious that war is never the answer. Never.
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Copyright © 2023 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups encouraged; links from other blogs welcomed; all other rights reserved.
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Your turn

I said I didn’t have a column last weekend, because I had tried writing about the sudden resignation of Toronto Mayor John Tory, and realized I had nothing worth saying.
John McTavish told me, “You did write a column after all (and I bet I'm not the only reader who picked up on this)! It's just that you expressed yourself more succinctly than usual.”

Don Gunning was even succinct: “The public eye seemingly never goes to bed!”

Dick Best was grateful: “Kudos to you. Many people with nothing to say still try to say it. And show why they shouldn't.”

Nenke Jongkind wrote as a resident of Ontario’s capital city: “Thank for your consideration in not using up energy for a subject that has had too much ink. A premier encouraging a mayor to not needlessly resign, was a strange experience! While it was all an unhappy surprise I can only thank John Tory for having the well-spoken and well-mannered sense to exit after not living up to his own standards. He has been a good foil to help us get over our years of Rob Ford who could not have been described as well-spoken or well-mannered.
“My only hope is that the residents of Toronto who are eligible voters do so in greater measure than in recent decades.”

Bob Rollwagen agreed with Nenke: “I noted during the coverage that, like all politicians, some loved him and were sad, some thought he did nothing and were glad, and most sat on the fence.”

Vera Gottlieb wondered, “Is it really so bad for an elected official to have an affair with a member of his/her staff? Of course, it would depend on how far/intimate this relation is taken. But is it not the business of the marriage partners to settle this? Is it an affair…is it a fling? I don’t think it is the public’s business as long as the public’s interests are not harmed.”

Robert Mason thought the concluding sentence of my non-column said it all: “For someone in the public eye, there's no such thing as safe sex.”
Then he added some comments as a receiver of plasma donations (the previous week’s column): “Since June last year I've gone to Penticton Regional Hospital twice each month, for plasma infusions, each session taking about two hours. I was in today and will be again tomorrow, so I asked one of the nurses who was overseeing the infusion if I would be allowed to donate. She checked and said it would not be allowed, as I had Dengue Fever when working in Mexico some 30 years ago.”