DEAR EDITOR:

Cal Thomas asked in The Vindicator last week what is the United States’ goal in Ukraine? He then went on to point out America’s last victory was in World War II, and we have been stalemated or defeated in Korea and Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan ever since. Essentially losing American lives and treasure from the homeland without tangible positive results.

So why Ukraine?

Let’s be clear. There is no moral justification for modern warfare taking civilian lives, disrupting families and destroying economic and infrastructure base that civilian societies have laboriously built up over generations of human sweat and tears. We are told Putin is a dictator as well as murderer and so should be pushed back against … presumably to protect American interests and the Western way of life. What is the cost of that in grandmothers and schoolchildren, bridges and buildings as we proceed to destroy a society in order to save it?

If humanity is all that bright with its space programs, economic energy and creativity and instant vaccine production (not to say distribution capabilities), one might wonder why we cannot seem to avoid barbaric civilian killing wars, and just maybe solve our problems by strong, real negotiations without the threat and reality of being bombed out of existence. I am not a greatly religious person, but I doubt that any god would be applauding from a choir loft as we annihilate ourselves and our culture by such military displays of superiority.

One may well ask, where are the peacemakers? Does the “might makes right” card always have to be the trump card of last resort? Where are our brains in Washington and Moscow and other world capitals when we need them? Are the peace universities the last to be heard from? Is there a better way forward?

To answer Cal Thomas’s question, the U.S. goal in Ukraine will be met when Russia is crushed as Germany was following WWI and is no longer a threat to peace — unless some demagogue arises from the paperhangers union with one arm. Maybe if we helped restructure Russia in 1990, as we did Germany and Japan after World War II, we wouldn’t be facing a more deadly World War III today.

So much for history.

HOWARD METTEE

US Fulbright Scholar to Russia, 1997-98

Beaver Township