I pen this missive as one who has killed another human being, not out of personal grievance or vendetta, no, at the behest of my government at the time. Sadly, some world figures embrace warfare still today as a viable means of expansion. As of this writing we find ourselves in an escalatory cyclone predicated upon the pretense that, “We have no choice.”

In my coarse shorthand, here’s how it could all play out: Russia enlists thousands of North Korean ground forces to join their incursion into Ukraine. President Biden responds by sending Ukraine long-range missiles (ATACM – 190 miles). Putin asserts that Russia is entitled to strike military facilities of countries that allow their weapons to be used against Russian facilities. And Mr. Putin evokes that the regional conflict in Ukraine has assumed elements of a global nature.

Could it be that a loud nuclear bark might garner Mr. Putin more favorable terms with a newly inaugurated President Trump? Lines drawn in the sand are just that, lines drawn in shifting sands. Still, the repost remains, “We have to respond!” So, conditions on the ground continue to accelerate missile brinkmanship, retaliatory threats, and the threat of WWIII lifts its ugly head…

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Then suddenly, (January), in rides a cowboy on a white horse. In full disclosure I am not a big President Trump fan but could become one if he pulls this one off. President Trump issues a directive to Ukraine: “Cede to Russia the Crimea along with currently held neighboring lands, and stand down with security guarantees from the United States, though not necessarily NATO.”

Everybody agrees to the terms, the killing fields grow quiet in that part of the world, and we turn our attentions to the Middle East. At this point in my fantasy I shall humbly request permission to shake President Trump’s hand and buy him a non-alcoholic Corona.

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As global warming heats our personal nervous systems there are too many that are too quick to stand up and shout, “Let’s take it to them!”

Alas, should we go the way of the dinosaurs, it will be as Jimmy Buffett admitted in his song, “My Own Damn Fault.” Wouldn’t it be a hellacious shame were the last words spoken here on Planet Earth were, “We have to respond.” And nobody heard them…

Let us hope the words of the late Dr. King will ring out above the rest, “We shall overcome because the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

While waiting anxiously for the other shoe to drop, I shall go out to Lone Mountain Cemetery and lay a wreath on a soldier’s headstone, a soldier who made the ultimate sacrifice in order to help bend that long arc of the moral universe toward justice…