If you know your Revolutionary War history, you will recognize the phrase turned by the pamphleteer and firebrand Thomas Paine in The American Crisis in which he urged the beleaguered American revolutionaries — the Continental Army now on the far side of the Delaware River driven before the victorious British — to hold steady and to justify the cause of freedom.
December 23, 1776
THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value.
I rise to urge those weak sisters amongst us who are inclined to abandon the cause of Ukraine in the face of adversity and other issues — Put some bloody steel in your backbones, you miserable cowards.
[Please note I am speaking to you, Donald J Trump, you notorious draft dodger; and you, Vivek Ramaswamy, you arrogant little whelp.]
We stay the bloody course, dear reader. We arm, advise, encourage, and empathize with the brave President of Ukraine and its people to stay the course and to defeat Russia in their unprovoked attack on their country and the largest military operation since World War II.
We do not abandon Ukraine to the Russians because cowering in front of naked aggression invites more aggression from an emboldened tyrant. That is our national interest.
There are several reasons:
1. The Russians cannot win unless we abandon Ukraine.
The Russians have a third rate army devoid of leadership. These morons — and our Pentagon, military intelligence, and Central Intelligence Agency — thought they could overrun Ukraine in a week.
Our intel guys need a wood shed session with a willow for how wrong they assessed things.
2. We have a moral and a legal obligation to stand by Ukraine as we agreed to in the Budapest Memorandum of 5 December 1994 wherein the United States, the United Kingdom, and the Russian Federation agreed to defend Ukraine in return for its removal of all nuclear weapons (owned by the then defunct USSR and sent to the Russian Federation) as part of an effort in support of nuclear non-proliferation.
Is the United States’ word good anymore? We punked out on Vietnam, Afghanistan, and now Ukraine? Consider the message this sends to China vis a vis Taiwan.
3. The Ukrainians are facing a Russian army that as noted above is devoid of leadership, cannot make up battlefield losses in personnel, is now scraping the bottom of the barrel by dragging mothballed 1950s/60s tanks out of storage, and has gone over to the defense. They still have plenty of missiles, but they are buying drones from Iran and artillery ammunition from North Korea.
4. Western, Nato, and American arms are highly effective and are slowly bleeding the Russians.
For God’s sake, man, give the Ukrainians more of what works!
Where once the Russians could stage and manage their military efforts from as close as twenty miles behind the FEBA (forward edge of the battle area), now advanced weapons can destroy them a hundred miles deep.
5. Contrary to the lies coming out of Russia, the Russian economy is suffering. Any faux gains they have made are as a result of a heightened and overheated war economy and the production of armaments.
Any gains in gross domestic product — nobody believes the numbers Russia is trying to sell, they are shrinking — are war manufacturing, not commerce.
The Russians will break if we continue the regime of sanctions, root out the cheaters, and continue to apply pressure. This is how we won the Cold War — staying the course.
6. A Russian victory/Ukrainian defeat is not an end game.
It is the first chapter of a long book — think War & Peace — of Russian aggression that will rub up against Nato shortly. A Ukrainian victory can forestall this disastrous eventuality.
When evil confronts good, when aggressors invade peaceful countries, all that lies in their path to deny their victory is the actions of good men and women.
All that is required in this situation for Russia to triumph is for us to do nothing.
This is the service from which Thomas Paine urges us not to shrink.
In the American Revolution, Washington sent his badly mauled army into winter quarters at a place called Valley Forge. It was a hard place in a horrific winter, and it was nearly impossible to feed the Continental Army.
Many state militia soldiers returned home.
The Brits expected to finish off the Americans in the spring.
A gentleman named Baron von Steuben arrived and offered to train and drill Washington’s army, an offer George Washington accepted and the Continental Army that emerged from that hard winter at Valley Forge learned how to deploy on the double from a column of platoons to a line of platoons with their cannons arrayed behind them and to offer battle to the well organized British army.
This time now is Ukraine’s and our Valley Forge. This is the time that tries men’s souls and we are playing the role of Baron von Steuben and Washington in seeing the Ukrainians through a crisis.
Oh, my goodness, it is the best investment with the highest ROI on peace imaginable.
The Russian economy is smaller than Italy. They will fold if we keep up the pressure of the sanctions and root out the cheaters.
The US military budget is more than $900,000,000,000 and we will invest less than 15% of that number to support Ukraine.
Every Russian soldier killed and wounded is one less to attack Nato. Every munition exhausted, every piece of gear destroyed is one less for Russia to deploy against Nato.
This is a cheap war for the US as wars go. It is the cheapest way imaginable to defang Russia and to safeguard Europe regionally and the US strategically.
Now is the wrong time to usher in a Russian victory, one they cannot gain on the battlefield. Now is the time to further support Ukraine and give it the means to throw the Russians out of their country.
Now is the time for the warriors to step to the front and for the summer soldiers and the sunshine patriots to step back. It is a time to lean forward in our saddles, jut our chins out, to confront evil, and to act with the resolve of Valley Forge.
Normally, I close by saying: “But, hey, what the Hell do I know anyway? I’m just a Big Red Car.”
Today, I say — now is not the time for the summer soldier and the sunshine patriot to betray good in its confrontation with evil. Stay the course. This will work. “Tyranny, like Hell is not easily conquered.”
God bless us all. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Hanukkah!
