On Michael Smerconish’s show last Saturday morning the question was: Should the U.S. declare war on Russia?
I voted no instantly. It took me less than ten seconds to register my vote despite the horrifying things all of us are witnessing every day in Ukraine.
My uncle was a decorated war hero from WW II. My father was a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy who served on a mine sweeper. I would have clearly gone to Vietnam if I was of age before the Vietnam War ended. My father in-law was a U.S. Air Force Bird Colonel who flew intelligence missions along the Russian border during the Cold War. His best friend, and, a father figure to me, was a Brigadier General who flew those same missions with my father-in-law into the Baltics.
What I’m saying is…I don’t come from families who are pacifists.
Here’s why I voted no. I voted no because from the point of January 6th, 2021, our own country has been embroiled in its own Civil War. We have no business being at war with anybody given the current state of affairs in America.
How can we look to the rest of the world and ask them to risk becoming what we became during the four years of Donald Trump’s all-out assault on America’s institutions and democracy?
Why would we aspire for them to become like us?
What would change this for me?
Simple. The vote to impeach Donald Trump in his SECOND impeachment trial was 57-43. Conviction would have required ten more GOP senators vote to convict.
Here’s what I would suggest. The Senate hold a second vote based on the evidence already on the record. Obviously…this would be double jeopardy and would not be a legally binding conviction.
However…what it would be is a symbolic gesture by the GOP senators that they are finally prepared to begin the process of coming clean with their constituents and putting patriotism above self-serving political survival.
You cannot have two sets of facts and effectively govern a country.
I mean…how do you Trump people even think given our current state that the Senate could even get the votes required to declare war?
In closing, I would say we need to get our house in order before we even think about the rest of the world.
And, again this quote, “The total indifference to evidence is today’s American exceptionalism.”
Pray not only for the Ukrainians, but ourselves as well.