Peace Sells

 Give peace a chance. 

Not unlike the little seedlings in our planter out front, we would like to offer peace a chance to take root and grow.

Wild. 

There are, of course, a lot of things that keep this from happening. Not the least of these is capitalism. I know this because I play this game on my computer called "Civilization," and I know that I can get lots more gold in my treasury if I topple the tiny kingdom adjacent to me. Anyone who tells you that the reasons for Russia's invasion of Ukraine is any more complex than this is lying. 

Making trade deals and treaties takes a lot more time and negotiating than simply rolling in the big guns and stomping neighbors into submission. The image of the "liberation" of Iraq is not complete without the sea of oil derricks in the background. The United States has not been in the business of freeing oppressed people without a pretty cool cash incentive. Hitler was killing people by the thousands and toppling governments for years before the United States decided to get into the fight. It took the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to get us off the bench and into the game. Hitler and his goons had steamrolled across Europe without much of a fight and were on their way to England when his Axis friends finally pushed things a little too far.

We have not spent a lot of time in the intervening years fighting unless there was a price tag on the territories being engulfed and devoured. It just so happened that the Domino Theory worked the other way, allowing democracy to rise up and topple oppressive regimes without firing a shot. This is one of the reasons Ronald Reagan gets so much applause. He once insisted that "Mister Gorbachev tear down this wall," just before it was going to happen anyway. The most likely reason for this action was not an overwhelming rise in the need for freedom as much as free enterprise. There was a GAP store located on the western side of the Berlin Wall and button fly jeans were fifty percent off. 

So if we can get a brief cease fire and a really good deal at all eastern European Toyota dealers, we could wrap this whole deal up in a weekend.