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Repent! The End is Near!
Well, not necessarily but…
There is a melancholy feeling of late. Somehow we are facing the end of western civilization. But is it really? For that matter, if it were the end, would we actually recognize it as such? Even a modest familiarity with world history tells us that we are hardly the first to face that question. It might be obvious if we were Romans in Britain in 410 AD, when the order came from Rome for the last legions to leave. Then a hard decision was needed; pack up and go, or stay and take your chances. Even more obvious would be to be in Constantinople in May 1453. Then Mehmet’s great gun pounding at the city walls would make the message clear.
Just as often, however, the signs may be there but not so clear. The spice merchant in Petra might remark on the declining number of caravans coming through. A farmer in Sumeria might puzzle over recent crop failures. The future might seem bleak, or maybe not. Perhaps things will be better next season. Maybe the king has something up his sleeve that will set matters right.
It is to this issue that I recommend the podcast, Fall of Civilizations. I found this series of podcasts on YouTube but all the details can be found at fallofcivilizations.com. The podcast is the work of Paul Cooper who both writes and narrates the podcast. Each episode runs about three to four hours and is a deep dive into the entire history of significant civilizations and well worth the investment of time.
Perhaps the current apocalyptic fog is being driven, at least in part, by the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. Serious argument is made as to whether we should be involved, and support by our government and others has been just enough to keep it going but not enough to push it to a decisive end, short of complete surrender by Ukraine.
One of the most vocal critics is Tucker Carlson. He obviously has a bully pulpit to preach from and he has a definite talent for asking uncomfortable questions. But, as with Vietnam, Iraq, and all the conflicts in which we have been involved since WWII, there are no answers. Tucker simply says we should quit, give up. Perhaps it is the thing to do at this juncture, but just how would this be brought about? Would we stop answering the phone when Zelensky calls? Would we call Vladimir and tell him he won and can have anything he wants? Most significantly, would we just stand by as Putin devours Ukraine, obliterates the population? We cannot predict the future, not any of it, save maybe for a demonstration of the laws of gravity. Without a reasonable estimate of future possibilities, no decision, whether to stay the course, cut and run, seek a compromise, negotiate a truce, would be sensible. On this, Mr. Carlson is stone silent.
There is a reason for defending Ukraine, one which has hardly been touched. The cold fact is that Ukraine is a sovereign country and Russia has willfully violated that sovereignty. Our whole international system relies on the sanctity of borders and requires international consent to change them. Allow Russia to prevail, and all that crumbles into dust. Defending Ukraine has nothing to do with any past history, nor with any supposed political sympathies of some Ukrainians. Particularly useless is to complain that the Ukraine government is corrupt. Just which set of corrupt oligarchs should we side with? Either Ukraine’s borders remain intact, or there are no borders for anyone.
It may be naive, but at least it is a principle to consider. The situation is hideously complicated by the energy debacle. Even so, it does not seem a wise choice to just step back and watch it all burn, all the while smugly saying, “We told you so!”
Published in History
Sure it does, rigged / fixed election
Yes. And if he met no resistance from the West in Ukraine he would have concluded that he could act with impunity. Would The US and France and Germany send their children to die in Latvia? He’d have successfully broken NATO. It might still work out that way.
I suggest you read my comment again. You apparently missed the part where I said the reason he didn’t go after the Baltics is because they are members of NATO. Putin knows we have a treaty obligation to the Baltics, while we have no such obligation to UKR. Seriously, the Baltics would have been a much easier target for RUS than UKR.
And again, even without the massive aid to UKR from the West, which didn’t start in earnest until after the invasion, UKR bloodied the Russians enough to turn it into a war of attrition.
And unrestricted submarine warfare on US shipping and that little unpleasantness at Pearl harbor don’t bother you art all. Remember Germany and Japan declared war on us not the other way around, or is your position we should have ceded the pacific to Japan and Europe to Germany. Also the reason Germany was bogged down in Russia and Japan was bogged down in China was because the US was doing exactly to Japan and Germany in the late 30s and early 40s what we are doing in Ukraine right now to Russia.
Once again blame America first. Your right of course we are a force for evil in the world I am sure if we just let those nice Islamists dominate the middle east and let the Palestinians push the Israelis into the sea no long range harm will come to us. After all it is only the things we do they hate not what we are.
The Albanians were ethnically cleansing Serbians. And still are.
Not what I said. Why do people always put words in my mouth? I suppose straw men are easiest to knock down. Does nobody read anymore? I said nothing about “blame America first.” I merely said that we were quite obviously not isolationist prior to 9/11.
I’m really starting to dislike it here.
First of all, the Israelis are quite capable of taking care of themselves as they have proven time and again. The US and Israel have been close only since the Nixon administration. They survived before that. Israel is far better off not being a client in the way South Vietnam and Ukraine were/is. The US tends to make bad decisions for other people. Europe is going to pay that price with both hunger and energy bills by foolishly following the US.
Blame America when it is wrong. What happened in Iraq was clearly wrong. Wrong premise. Civilians killed. Torture. I assume you are willing to defend this as well?
Sorry @drewinwisconsin. Having a [redacted] day and was unfairly projecting someone else on you. Sorry about that. You are right it isn’t what you said. I guess I understand your point but our foreign policy was pretty chaotic in the 90s I don’t know how to characterize it. I don’t think interventionalist is quite right, but isolationist may not be correct either. America was very much inward focused at the time; however, their were interventions that probably served as distractions for domestic political scandals. I don’t think that was a cause of 9/11. I think it was a pretext used by very sophisticated opponents who parrot the talking points of our elite left. The Islamists hate us because of what we are not because of what we have done. They hate us because we drink alcohol, eat pork, don’t pray five times a day, and don’t practice a very ridged code of segregating the sexes.
The war in Iraq was not a wise strategic move for the US. That having been said the US was justified in engaging in it. Iraq was clearly in violation of the terms of the ceasefire that ended the gulf war. In fact they had been in violation for a while. It wasn’t until after 9/11 the US cared. The world is fundamentally a better place without Saddam Hussein and his murderous sons. There are always civilians killed in war. That doesn’t make things just/ unjust it is way things are. America does its best to minimize that as much as possible. In truth in my view we may go overboard in that direction. I don’t support the Iraq war in hindsight because it was not necessary and I don’t think it was wise. I don’t believe it was immoral and I don’t believe that America did anything particular blame worthy.
Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was a response to economic sanctions that we imposed. I think that the most serious sanction was an oil embargo.
I don’t think that we should have ceded the Pacific to Japan. I think that we should have continued selling them oil, and it would have been unlikely that they would have attacked us, either at Pearl or in the Philippines.
I’m not sure what you mean about unrestricted submarine warfare against US shipping. Prior to Pearl Harbor and the German declaration of war, the Germans left coastal US shipping alone in WWII, as far as I know. I presume that you mean German WWII U-boats attacking US ships en route to Britain or the USSR, which were sending weapons to Germany’s enemies. That was a provocation, wasn’t it?
Our providing weapons to Britain and the USSR was even more of a provocation after March 1941, when we passed Lend-Lease and started sending those weapons for free.
Finally, I disagree with your assessment about the reasons for Germany and Japan being bogged down in Russia and China, respectively. It is true that we sent some weapons to those countries. Not many, as it turns out. I think that the Russians turned the tide on the Germans before receipt of substantial US assistance. Our aid to China was also pretty small, and it was very hard to get it to them over the Burma Road or by air.
I find it unlikely that our aid to Russia changed the outcome on the Eastern Front, though it probably hastened the Russian victory. It is more plausible, to me, that China might have fallen absent our aid, but that would not have ended Japan’s problems. Even if Chiang Kai-shek surrendered, the Japanese would have been trying to hold down a huge Chinese population — about 500 million at the time, with a Japanese population of about 80 million.
So, you see, I think that FDR provoked our way into unnecessary wars with both Germany and Japan. The big winner ended up being the Communists. In hindsight, that seems like a bad idea to me.
I’m not blaming America first. I’m pointing out that isolationism wasn’t the cause of 9/11, contrary to your claim. Interventionism was the cause of 9/11.
I do think that the Muslims hate what we are, but they don’t have any particular reason to come after us across an ocean, if we were not constantly intervening in their part of the world.
Finally, in your comment, I think that we finally see the real reason behind the interventionist policy. It is Zionism and the Jewish lobby. It’s not good for America. It may be good for Israel. I want to put America First. I have no objection to the Israelis putting Israel First.
Stalin and Khrushchev disagree.
Khrushchev in his memoirs:
Now, one can argue that Joe was being diplomatic at the Tehran conference, but Nicky had no reason to write that in his memoirs if he didn’t believe it.
(Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/did-us-lend-lease-aid-tip-the-balance-in-soviet-fight-against-nazi-germany/30599486.html)
Better than I could have put it.
That is conjecture. Remember they chanted death to America long before we were intervening in their part of the world.
It isn’t in America’s interest to have allies in the world? Israel is the only democracy in that part of the world. They have a tremendous economy and they are a modern western country. In fact they are a far more natural ally in that region than just about anyone else. Is your concept that we should not have any allies anywhere? How is that good for America.
Not to me. The apocalypse is coming because of the godlessness of our people — the lack of virtue — without which our form of self-government is unsuitable and cannot last. Ukraine is a sideshow.
That’s mostly true.
Islamists may have conniptions about women’s equality and abortion in the West, but that doesn’t motivate them to action the way the results of American foreign policy does.
??
https://www.thoughtco.com/us-and-middle-east-since-1945-2353681
It’s a cost/benefit thing. How much do they cost you and how much do they benefit you?
I dunno, somehow, disarming the feds doesn’t seem like such a bad idea right now.
Can we send the 87,000 new armed IRS agents to Ukraine too? Or maybe just their guns and ammo?
If you were getting a home-invasion attack by BLM activists and aside from yourself, the only people willing to help you defend your home were KKK members, would you tell them to not help and let BLM overrun you and your family, because the KKK is racist, and they’re helping you not because they believe in law and order but because they hate black people?
Versus waiting and possibly REALLY blowing things up if Russia attacks others?
I assume you’ve heard of “penny wise and pound foolish?”
These unfalsifiable claims might be too subtle for some people to recognize, but we still don’t know what the result might have been if South Korea HAD fallen, or if we hadn’t fought over Vietnam as long as we did even if it wound up not “succeeding.” I’m unwilling to concede that we should have done nothing, from the start, just because the result of not doing as much as some people wanted, wasn’t “all that bad.”
Especially since, if the CIA and State Department etc were honest etc, we wouldn’t have President Biden now.
No, leave the guns and ammo.
If they leave them WITH us, sure. But if they keep it to use AGAINST us, I’d rather it be in Ukraine.
Noc, has to include the agents.
You certainly march to the beat of a different drummer on most issues. Now you are scrapping the whole notion of nation sovereignty around the world. Apparently the only nation’s borders that matter to you are the U.S.’s, which I agree should be our most important concern, but to toss the rest of the world into the trash can is kind of callous and self-centered, no?
I thought you were going way out in left field when you declared that wars around the world do not affect us. Apparently that was just the tip. Now you say it was a mistake to fight Germany and Japan, it was not us that defeated Germany, it was the Russians, we were wrong to defend South Korea, you contend that the hundreds of thousands murdered by the Communists in South Vietnam mean nothing to us, and the Muslims were justified in killing 3,000 Americans on 9/11.
This is hard to believe, but I think you have surpassed Alex Jones. This is some of the most outlandish revision of history I have ever come across, certainly on Ricochet. What is also very strange is that you are a devout Christian and yet you constantly proclaim that we as Americans should not be concerned with the suffering of people or of catastrophic evil being committed throughout the rest of the world, especially against the Jews. Is that the teaching of Jesus?
Then you shouldn’t opine that Russia is doing so well in the war.
Okay, if I’ve got this right, the U.S. was responsible for World War II against the Japs, for not selling them gasoline. Then I take it you supported the Japanese conquest of Southeast Asia that had been happening for 40 years prior to this with the extermination of millions of Chinese, Taiwanese, Koreans, and other nationals from smaller countries, not to mention the abducting of over one-hundred thousand women from Korea to be used as sex slaves for Japanese officers.
If you were not aware of the Japanese invasions and extermination of millions of people which caused the U.S. to embargo oil sales to them, then I will understand. But from your recent comments, I would not be surprised if you supported Japan’s conquests.