home archives last week feedback Rolla Peace News March 8, 2022 |
Dear Friends:Editor's note: Please consider writing for our newsletter. It's always very exciting to be able to publish submissions from our readers.In this newsletter is: 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, March 10, 2022 2. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org)           Has The Ukraine Become the New Afghanistan? 1. NOON VIGIL FOR PEACE: THURSDAY, MARCH 10, 2022 We vigil for peace in front of the Rolla Post Office, THIS THURSDAY, MARCH 10, FROM NOON TO 1:00 PM (and most subsequent Thursdays until Peace is established). Please join us this Thursday in saying END THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND ALL OTHER WARS — LET PEACE PREVAIL. The temperature is predicted to be in the 50s. If you do not feel comfortable joining us in front of the Post Office, please consider driving by and showing your support for our message by honking your horn and flashing a peace sign. Note 1: Last Thursday, Helen and I were joined by a family of 6 in our Vigil for Peace. It has been a long time since Rolla has seen so many attending a Peace vigil together. We hope many more will come this Thursday to say: END THE WAR IN UKRAINE AND ALL OTHER WARS. Note 2: In case of inclement weather, vigils may be canceled or terminated early. 2. THE MISFIT MATHEMATICIAN (Tom's column, http://tomsager.org) Has The Ukraine Become the New Afghanistan? I think The Ukraine was meant to be the new Afghanistan — the Russian neighbor that, like Afghanistan in the 1980s, would bleed Russia dry.“I have the means to make myself deadly, but that by itself, you understand, is absolutely nothing in the way of protection. What is effective is the belief those people have in my will to use the means. That’s their impression. It is absolute. Therefore I am deadly.” Step 1: Create an anti-Russian force on Russia's border.But, what went wrong? Everything seemed to be working out so perfectly. Putin is no Brezhnev, and Zelensky no bin Laden. Russia doesn't appear to be attempting to occupy The Ukraine. Rather, the purpose of the invasion seems to be to inflict maximum pain upon it's neighbor, while sustaining minimal loses. Russia also has effectively neutralized many countries that would like to support The Ukraine, by issuing credible threats (in the eyes of it's foreign enemies, see Joseph Conrad quote above) to escalate, even unto a nuclear World War III. I think Zelensky has finally figured out that as far as NATO is concerned, Ukrainians are nothing but sacrificial lambs. Zelensky's call for a Nato imposed “no fly zone” over The Ukraine was met with the NATO response: “If we did that, we’ll end up with something that could end in a full-fledged war in Europe, involving many more countries and causing much more human suffering.” In other words, you Ukrainians can suffer and die; but not us; not here in the United States, the UK, France or Germany. Zelensky responded, “All the people who die from this day forward will also die because of you, because of your weakness, because of your lack of unity.” How true! In fact, Russia, being in full control of six Ukrainian nuclear power reactors at Zaporizhzhya, has yet another option: Wait for a day of strong easterly winds; create a false-flag attack on Zaporizhzhya, releasing deadly radiation which will blow over Western Europe. So what is next? Wars are easy to start; hard to stop. I think, at this point, almost everyone is ready for this war to end (except, of course the war profiteers at Raytheon, Lockheed, General Electric, etc.) Perhaps, the world's best bet for avoiding disaster is to ask Afghanistan to mediate a Peace agreement. Afghanistan has so much experience with foreign invasions and was still able to successfully negotiate a Peace agreement with the United States. The World could benefit from their wisdom.           And here is some of the likely fallout from the Russo-Ukranian War: Whatever happens from here on out, I suspect most will agree that the whole world, including The Ukraine, would have been far better off with a neutral Ukraine at Peace with all its neighbors. NATO has, indeed, shown itself to be untrustworthy and ineffectual. I don't think anyone will ever trust NATO again. I don't think anyone will trust Russia either after their brutal assault on the Ukraine and the cavalier way they threatened the whole world with nuclear war. Russia's major ally, China, also seemed shocked by Russia's behavior. The absolute hypocrisy of the West has been exposed beyond redemption. All this talk about Russia violating Human Rights in Ukraine. Hey, what about Afghanistan where children are starving while the West steals what little money they have; What about Palestine where occupation, bombings and apartheid have been going on for over half a century with Western support; what about Yemen, where the Saudi coalition with Western arms has created one of the world's worst humanitarian disasters. The Ukraine and Russia are both major exporters of grain to the world. Disruption of Ukainian exports due to War and Russian exports due to sanctions will increase the already considerable global hunger, particularly in the poorest nations that rely on food imports. Western Sanctions against Russia will likely hasten the move, which is already underway, toward replacing the US dollar as the currency of choice in international commercial transactions. Nuclear non-proliferation, which has been on life-support, may soon be dead. Who is going to trust any of these nuclear powers now? Rolla Peace News is distributed by email once a week on Tuesdays (except on rare occasions) and is posted on the web at http://tomsager.org (click on Rollaites for Peace: near the top of rightmost column).Wage peace, Tom yushasager (at) yahoo.com  |