Just before I started to write this blog post, I got a reminder that it's time to use CleanMyMac, a utility program I've been using without thinking where the creators come from.
Now I know. This message popped up when I opened CleanMyMac.
I was moved.
Like so many other Americans, and people all around the world, I'm hugely supportive of Ukraine and deeply irritated at the war crimes being committed by Putin's forces following Russia's invasion of Ukraine without provocation.
Today I heard a report that a Russian tank killed 56 people at an elderly care home, taking 15 people hostage.
Ukraine's claims have not been independently verified but were tweeted out by Ukraine's State Service of Special Communications.
In a statement, it said: "56 people were killed in Kreminna, Luhansk Oblast - the occupiers shot from a tank (a) home for the elderly.
"Russians fired at it. Cynically and deliberately. They adjusted the tank, put it in front of the house, and started firing."
The statement went on: "Those who lived to their old age in the house - 56 people - died on the spot. The survivors, 15 people, were abducted by the occupiers and taken to the occupied territory in Svatove to the regional geriatric boarding school."
Many thousands of other civilians, including women and children, have been killed by Russia's indiscriminate shelling of residential areas in Ukrainian cities.
By and large, I'm pleased with how the Biden administration has handled the Ukraine crisis. However, I still feel that President Biden needs to act more forcefully against Putin.
What irks me the most is talk that the United States can't support sending Polish MiG airplanes to Ukraine because this could "provoke" Putin.
Wow.
Putin is bombing apartment complexes. He's shelling places where civilians are sheltering against Russian artillery fire and missiles. He's abducting Ukrainians who were forced to enter Russia after fleeing Ukraine and sending them to Siberia (literally). He's using hypersonic missiles for the first time in warfare.
Putin clearly isn't worried about provoking the United States and our allies, yet we're supposed to worry about provoking him?
Today the Secretary General of NATO refused to say on Meet the Press whether NATO would consider Russia's use of chemical weapons in Ukraine a red line that would merit a NATO response.
Biden administration officials keep saying that the United States can't do everything possible to aid Ukraine because Russia is a nuclear power. That's ridiculous.
The United States also is a nuclear power. Putin should be as afraid of us using nuclear weapons as we're afraid of Russia using nuclear weapons.
Mutually Assured Destruction is still the only viable strategy for preventing World War III. That was the case in the Cold War. It's still the case in this Ukraine hot war. I'm not saying that the United States should fight directly against Russian forces.
A no-fly zone enforced by our country doesn't make sense, since this could entail shooting down Russian airplanes.
However, there's no reason we can't aid Ukraine by giving them every possible type of conventional weapon, including MiG fighters that would be supplied by our Eastern European allies in exchange for the United States replacing those planes with newer fighter jets.
And Ukraine should get our most advanced ground-to-air missile systems, even if this requires training by American advisors. Putin is trying to bring in mercenaries from Syria, Libya, and perhaps other nations to aid in Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Belarus troops also are poised to fight in Ukraine on behalf of Russia.
So why should the United States be reluctant to have MiGs flown into Ukraine from an American airbase in Germany, or have a small number of American military advisors engaged in noncombat roles in Ukraine?
Putin only responds to force arrayed against him. As an ex-KGB officer, he is skilled at sensing weakness in an adversary.
Right now, I'm worried that the United States is coming across as weak to Putin. That will only lead to more bloodshed, since an emboldened Putin is much more dangerous than a Putin who fears even stronger military aid being sent to Ukraine.
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