[jmcarter]

Like many I’ve been a bit ambivalent about this despite my sense of outage over what Putin is doing. We’ve made such a mess of so many foreign policy decisions in the past. Perhaps Vietnam being the worse case but Afghanistan being the most recent. We stayed on the sidelines while thousands were killed in Syria, many despite the crossing of a certain “red line”. But I’ve always detested a bully and the surest way of encouraging them is to take ineffective measures to deter them. I read again John Domme’s famous poem and think we need to redouble our aide to Ukrainian peoples and enforce a No Fly Zone and then let the chips fall where may.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself,
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were:
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind,
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell
tolls;
It tolls for thee.
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