Spare me the confused musings of the uninformed who somehow are equating paying higher prices for gasoline with helping the Ukrainians and punishing the marauding Russians.
Just how they can be so deluded escapes me, other than the very strong possibility that those espousing the sentiment are drinking too heavily from the administration’s propaganda Kool-Aid.
Begin with the fact that the Biden regime has yet to get around to banning the U.S. purchase of Russian crude oil.
And this means that by paying the higher prices, you not only aren’t helping the Ukrainians, you could be indirectly helping the Russians.
You want to give tangible help to the Ukrainians, grab a rifle and book passage to the front. Judging from the pictures of women and a motley crew of men with weapons in hand already fighting the Russians, such assistance would be welcomed much more than patting yourself on the back and citing your willingness to pay higher gasoline prices.
The downside to visiting the hostilities is you might stop a bullet with your forehead, a considerably greater problem than feeling some pain in the wallet.
I’m reminded of the Gen. George S. Patton speech, immortalized on film by the actor George C. Scott.
Unlike a lot of what you see coming out of Hollywood then, and now, Patton actually gave the speech as shown in the movie many times in real life.
The salient point Patton made to his troops ran like this: “Remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”
Patton would have been a most unhappy camper in this era of symbolic gestures, empty platitudes, and political correctness.
The warmongers screaming for U.S. boots on the ground in Ukraine might want to revisit the Patton speech. They also would be wise to understand that before a nation goes to war, its population has to accept that plenty of mistakes will be made and they will be measured in lives lost.
In addition, it is not just members of the armed forces that will be killed. Multitudes of otherwise innocent civilians will join them.
We won World War II because an estimated 9 million German and Japanese soldiers were killed in the fields or on the seas. Add to that total 3 million civilians who died in those countries.
It’s not that we were wrong to take out civilians. Both those nations’ leadership had killed and tortured more than their share of civilians in the lead-up to and execution of their war plans.
We were meeting those enemies on their level. It’s the harsh reality of such conflict and part of the reason that this country hasn’t really won a war since then.
Declaring victory and going home, leaving the problems to recur quickly, isn’t winning.
Note that neither Germany nor Japan has been adventurous in a military sense since the end of World War II. They got the message.
Can we say the same for North Korea or various Mideast countries in which the U.S. fought, but stopped short of total victory?
The Russians are finding out that, unlike Afghans, Ukrainians will fight for their homeland. The citizens will gladly take up donated armaments and use them to face up to the heavily favored opposition, not lay down those weapons and run away.
The Ukrainian effort is inspirational. Thinking you are participating in the cause vicariously by paying more for gasoline is an absurd slap in the faces of those fighters.
Sam Ross Jr's site 