Love And War

 All is fair in love and war. At least that's what they say. Of course whoever "they" are, they probably haven't spent a lot of time in either situation. That is why we have things like the Geneva Convention, that requires humane treatment for all persons in enemy hands, without discrimination. It specifically prohibits murder, mutilation, torture, the taking of hostages, unfair trial, and cruel, humiliating and degrading treatment. It requires that the wounded, sick and shipwrecked be collected and cared for. These are just a few of the Rules of War that exist to keep armed conflict from spilling out into our busy workaday world where we are all trying to conduct our personal business. Making money. Walking the dog. Falling in love. 

Which makes it all the more curious why Russia would suddenly announce that the United States would be "crossing a line" if they supplied Ukraine with long-range missiles. According to Russia's Foreign Ministry, this would put the US over a "red line" that would make them a "party in the conflict." Okay, first a few semantic points: The "red line" is a little too on the nose for the former Soviet Socialist Republic, don't you think? And then there's the matter of becoming a "party" in a war. I don't know a lot about war, but I am pretty sure that it's no party. 

That being said, I do wonder why Russia seems intent on calling its own foul on this one. Saying that long-range missiles aren't allowed is grotesquely hypocritical, since they have been pounding Ukraine with these same weapons for months. Currently, the United States has been supplying rockets with a range of approximately fifty miles. The next step up, the one that has Russia's Foreign Ministry worried, can travel nearly two hundred miles. Recently, targets in Russia have been bombarded from points too far away from Ukrainian held territory. Unless they were long range weapons. If suddenly the war was being fought on some sort of equal footing. 

So let's just go ahead and add this to the list of truly bad sportsmanship on the part of Russia and its invading forces. The ones that insist that somehow Ukraine is "theirs." Which brings us back to the rules of love: If you love something, let it go. If it doesn't come back, it was never yours in the first place. 

Do not, under any circumstance, track it down and kill it.