RE: THE US SHOULD BE A FORCE FOR PEACE IN THE WORLD

[gerryd...@yahoo.com]

Hey Jim,

Thanks for sending me this "Russia-Ukraine War" position paper from http://www.EisenhowerMediaNetwork.org

(Correct me if I'm wrong on your source here . . . I took it from the "Read more at" the end . . .)

Also, without adding a" reply all," including the position paper, I cc'ed all you did, including two I didn't know:

 "Judith Sandling" (Is she related to Bob Sandling who entered STA my/our year?

And John Collins.

The partial historical perspective and "sphere of influence" red lines is compelling up to a point--that point being the "forces of democracy" vs "forces of autocracy" paradigm we find ourselves in today.

We know Putin is a clever thug and a murder who seized power the past 20 years and heads the World Machiavellian parade of 2023.  He's done all he could to prevent democracy from growing in the former Soviet Union and what we call today the Russian Federation, including murdering reporters and political opponents.

"Russia in search of a warm water port" is the first Russian Ruler mindset I recall Harry Sievers telling us history majors we needed to know.

But what Russian rulers (monarchs, queens, Czars and Soviet successors wanted did not make it right or make it what their "democratic voting" border nations longed for . . .

Just the opposite, probably then and certainly today . . . .

YES, THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT PUTIN HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS TO BLACKMAIL US INTO BETRAYING THOSE SEEKING TO GIVE DEMOCRACY A CHANCE TO DEVELOPE.

I don't think we should sell out our friends and give democracy away to bullies with such weapons. Putin is simply a crime boss, not a legitimate democratic leader.  

(Yes, he's already charged before the World Court and should go to jail forever, which may not motivate him to do the right thing. How about finding an uninhabited "Elba" for him to spend his last days . . . watching the "Godfather" in Russian, sipping Vodka and munching potatoe chips and getting Kim Il Sung of North Korea to drop his nuclear weapon program and support democracy with time off for good behavior . . .)

BACK TO RUSSIA & UKRAINE: 

• Russia has to free all political prisoners, re-establish the free press and make all possible internal democratic moves under the observation of the UN before we meet them. 
• At the same time, they must cease fire and pull their troops out of Ukraine . . . 
• Yes, Crimea is a problem.  So make it last . . .
• And find a way to -- without their physical presence--support rebuilding all the damage they've done.

Peace with honor and respect,

Gerry

[Smith, Brian]

Thanks for sending along this report, Jim.

We don't  hear much of this analysis on cable TV news.

Do you or anyone else in our group know of any of the specifics of Pope Francis' mediating efforts to bring

about peace in eastern Ukraine? Some assessments in the news recently is that neither Russian nor

the Ukraine are likely to get all they want from this war and will at some point have to negotiate. Is Pope

Francis in a position to have credibility from both sides as a meditor?

Brian Smith

STA '58

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Ripon College
300 W. Seward St.
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[srdea...@aol.com]

Vladimir Putin has become Genghis Khan (scratch a Russia and you will find a Tatar).

Volodymyr Zelensky is a petitioner at the Holy See.  Netflix is eyeing the dramatis personae for a special production.


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[James Kelly]

Hi Gerry - Thanks for your tough minded challenge. That's the Gerry Drummond I know from St. Andrew's and the tennis court (You not only beat me, you beat everyone!) .  So, here's a challenge for you from the Newspaper that imitates your style, The DAILY NEWS page 20, May 20. A column   HIROSHIMA AND THE BOMB, THEN AND NOW by Rosario Laconis.  Among the points made:  Curtis LeMay who directed the firebombing of 59 Japanese cities said "The war would have been over in two weeks without the Russians entering and without the atomic bomb. The atomic bomb had nothing to do with the end of the war at all.." "Dwight D.. Eisenhower cautioned Truman not to drop the atomic bomb.    First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon". The Truman military chief of staff advised ":In my opinion that the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were almost defeated and ready to surrender; in being the first to use it, we adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages". Certainly no peacenik, General Douglas MacArthur opposed Truman's decision. In his HIROSHIMA the historian John Hersey reports that "the human toll was horrific; their faces were wholly burned, their eye sockets were hollow, the fluid from their melted eyes had run down their cheeks". Like you, I had grown up thinking that, tho horrid, our use of the atomic bombs were necessary to end what we still call 
The Good War" and saved tens of thousands of our own GIs.. Does any of the above bring you at least to your computer's pause button.?. What did/would you say to your students? What should Biden say to the Japanese? What should Catholics hear at Sunday Mass when the media will  remind us of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?  But, amidst it all,  I value the enduring friendship with you Gerry.  Blessings, jim

[gerryd...@yahoo.com]

Hey Jim K.,

I didn't see that I was on a nuclear tract in my need for us to stand up to bully-Putin notes. (Remember I ran the NYC Marathon with a retired Soviet Army Colonel who invited me to visit him in Moscow.)

If you're for democracy (warts and all) over dictatorship, then you do all you can to stop Putin in his murderous tracks . . . without incinerating the world we live in.

I've spoken out and / or acted in dangerous situations(some political; some human) because it was the right thing to do, not because I was brave and tough.

From one perspective, the story of mankind or "history" is the story of people fighting for "spheres of influence".  The problem is that some of them today have nuclear weapons.

On your Japan being ready to surrender in 1945 (yes?and NO!) which I didn't bring up in my facing Dictator Putin (who doesn't seem ready to surrender.): after Hiroshima, if your sources are accurate, Japan could have surrendered immediately but did not--so enter Nakashima.  (Both horrible for humanity.)

On your story of Truman being for the bomb and MacArthur against it in August 1945. 

When the Chinese crossed the Yalu in October 1950, MacArthur wanted Truman to drop the bomb on the Chinese north of the Yalu and Truman refused and fired MacArthur. 

Shall we set up a "38th" parallel in Ukraine. They suck you soul and kill you. East Berlin. That's where KGB Putin was stationed.

I've dealt with ideologues, some who changed for the good and some who got worse. And my trip behind the Berlin wall the summer of 1970 on my way home from the Philippines is seared in my mind. The border guard with the AK-47 inches away checking my passport on the tourist bus.

What do you advise us to do to lead Putin to gracefully (or ungracefully) do the right thing?

Peace, Brother,

Gerry