May cooler heads and peaceful hearts prevail

By Tony Magliano, tmag6@comcast.net

As I write, war between Russia and Ukraine is dangerously close. I hope and pray that as you read this, war has not become a reality.

War between Russia and Ukraine will be a total disaster. Many, mostly young combatants on all sides, will lie dead. Countless innocent children, women and elderly will have their lives snatched away. Our already very fragile environment will be gravely wounded.

Mountains of money that desperately need to be appropriated to feed millions of starving people in Afghanistan, Yemen and Tigray will be lost. And needed funds to develop sustainable family farms, build houses, hospitals, schools, roads, solar panels, and wind turbines – will go up in flames.

But political hawks and the military-industrial complex will benefit from all this blood spilling and destruction. Weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, and Raytheon are already raking in a fortune fuelling this immoral, preventable war.

If NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization), with its build-up of troops and armaments, directly gets involved – which is very possible considering Russia’s overwhelming military superiority poised at Ukraine’s border – the Russian-Ukraine conflict could quickly escalate out of control; quite possibly leading to humanity’s worst catastrophe – thermonuclear war!

As reported by Vatican News, Colonel Konstantin Sivkov, deputy president of the Kremlin-backed Russian Academy of Missile and Artillery Sciences, is worried that military tensions between the US and Russia over Ukraine could escalate into nuclear war; citing that such a nuclear war would destroy the US and Russia and change the world forever.

It is long overdue for everyone to realise that the unthinkable is dangerously close!  Everyone in both the US and around the world, needs to urge US President Joe Biden to act in the spirit and example of Jesus – to be a peacemaker as his, and our, Catholic faith teaches.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has dangerously and irresponsibly initiated this current crisis. There is no moral excuse for it. Nonetheless, it is essential both morally and geopolitically for the US and NATO to walk awhile in the shoes of Putin and the Russian people.

Consider that during World War II, Hitler’s Nazi Germany launched ‘Operation Barbarossa’ – the largest, deadliest military invasion in the history of warfare – into Russia (known then as the Soviet Union). At its end, over 800,000 Soviets/Russians were killed, and an additional six million were wounded or captured.

Furthermore, the World War II Nazi ‘Hunger Plan’ – the massive theft of Soviet crops – led to the starvation of more than four million Soviet/Russian citizens.

With all that in mind, and with many former Warsaw Pact nations now in NATO, Putin has an understandable and reasonable concern that neighbouring Ukraine not become a member of NATO. Imagine the US’ response if Canada or Mexico was seeking to join in a military alliance with Russia.

It would be wise for NATO to negotiate a guarantee that Ukraine not become a member of its military alliance, and for Putin to guarantee that Ukraine’s total sovereignty as an independent nation be permanently honoured with no military intimidations.

Let us fervently ask Our Lady Queen of Peace, to intercede to Our Lord Jesus, the Prince of Peace, that cooler heads and peaceful hearts prevail.

Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist.