Pat Oliphant for March 06, 2014
Transcript:
Whatever we do, we mustn't piss-off Mr. Putin. We can put the crane here. Now, Heave. We could try honey- I hear they like honey. Does anyone here speak bear? Swahili may work just as well. Well damnit he can't just stay here! Whom may we say is calling? Did the light brigade chapter die here? Not likely- but you could google them.
That was a very good comment. Ukraine is still needed as an agricultural adjunct to Russia, as a buffer against land invasion, and for southern access to sea ports. There have been ferocious famines and pogroms from which Russians have benefited with land grabs and colonization. (EXODUS, by Leon Uris, explains the concept of “beyond the Pale.”).The misery throughout history which a population has endured often shows in the mixture of genetics. Ukrainians and Afghans, for instance, being at the crossroads of mighty and ambitious empires show the features of many races. The mingling was often not benign, to say the least. Rape was and still is a military and political tactic..These things seem distant and archaic to a young culture such as ours basically is. We wonder why some cultures have such long, simmering hatreds against outsiders. It’s because they remember slaughters and despotism that crushed their cultures in the past.