PAGE A14, KEIZERTIMES, APRIL 08, 2022
How long will the West stay
aligned against Putin?
PUBLIC SQUARE welcomes all points of view. Published submissions do not necessarily reflect the views of the Keizertimes
A public library
To the Editor:
I have always been an enthusiastic
and voracious reader.
I have lived in Keizer all my life, how-
ever, I’ve had a Salem Library card ever
since I can remember and have accrued
library cards from all the cities I’ve
lived in. I even have a Chicago Public
Libraries card—the library was just a
couple blocks from my apartment and it
was wonderful to be able to escape the
stress of a new city and a busy work life
in books.
I recently bought a home in Keizer
and am invested in the city and its
improvement. Although the actual
distance to the Salem Library might
not be that far, I remember as a child
growing up in Keizer it seemed like
a huge distance and a pain to have to
wait for my parents to accompany me
the almost four miles to pick up books
I was eagerly awaiting. As I grew older,
having to drive or bike all the way to the
Salem Library made it harder to work
on projects or do research for school.
The network of libraries that The
Chemekta
Community
Regional
Library System (CCRLS) -encompasses
is a wonderful resource for children and
adults alike to use for reference or for
the simple joy of a new book to read. I
encourage all Keizer residents to sup-
port a Keizer Library so that other kids
can grow up loving to read and count-
ing on the library as one of their favorite
places to go.
Elizabeth Tomcyk
Keizer
Letters
from God’s word, encouragement to
all Americans, food and merchandise.
There was even some education given
about Native Americans and the treat-
ment they had to endure by political
evil powers.
Now, how was this a racist rally? It
wasn’t. And why would I not take my
family to hear a word from the Lord and
experience a great time? And it was a
wonderful time for about 4,000 people
there. Until the end….
The Keizertimes, posted a photo of
a young individual holding a sign at
this last City Council meeting in oppo-
sition of the event. This photo portrays
actual blatant racial hate-speech and I
quote, “I am White American’s Worst
Nightmare.”
And in so trying to prove this true,
some of us ralliers, of which many dif-
ferent nationalities were in attendance,
found home-made, sharpened rebar
spikes behind our tires. But you know,
we were the violent racists? No, we are
not.
Some stores did in fact close down
due to our traffic; but I can guarantee
the shops that boarded their windows
did not do so by any threat on our part.
Any false narrative spun about vio-
lence or racism, was in fact not per-
formed by any of the rally goers. Its
presence, however, was in attendance—
outside the gates.
Ariel Green
Keizer
Political rally causes
stir at city council
Tell it like it is
To the Editor:
Dear Charles Glen, regarding the
ReAwaken America Tour April 1 and 2:
On Friday, April 1, as my kids and
I walked toward the event, we walked
through a group of mostly young adults,
holding signs in lawful protest of the
event. As we walked through though,
they yelled at us and accused us of
being “neo-Nazi, white Supremicist,
racists!” Of which I am none. They even
took pictures of my minor children.
“How could you take your children to a
KKK rally?” they yelled.
There was a lot of singing, messages
To the Editor:
After enduring a U.S. President who
figuratively kissed the “Russian King’s”
gluteus maximus every time they met,
ethically-minded American men and
women now enjoy hearing from the cur-
rent American president ‘telling it, like
it is,’ that Vladimir Putin is an amoral
butcher and murderer who should be
removed from his office by Russian cit-
izens who want their government prac-
ticed by its design on paper.
Gene H. McIntyre
Keizer
WHEATLAND PUBLISHING CORP.
142 Chemawa Road N, Keizer, Oregon 97303
Phone: 503.390.1051 • www.keizertimes.com
By MICHAEL GERSON
Some commentators on the Ukraine
war—generally in the class of foreign pol-
icy realists—are ready for the denouement
before the full story is played out.
In the beginning was a failure of deter-
rence. After years of passive Western
reaction to his adventurism—in Georgia,
Crimea, Syria and elsewhere— Vladimir
Putin thought he could pursue a relatively
costless invasion of Ukraine. It was a mis-
calculation, but not an irrational one. A
swift and steely reaction by President
Biden was probably not the outcome Putin’s
intelligence services ranked as most likely.
After having championed the abandon-
ment of both Syria (as vice president) and
Afghanistan (as president) to terrible fates,
Biden’s fortitude would not have been
assumed.
As the conflict began, foreign policy
realists across the ideological spectrum
thought (like many others) that the war
would be a rout in Russia’s favor. This out-
come would have had the virtue of strate-
gic simplicity. The red line against Russian
aggression could have been drawn at the
inviolable borders of NATO countries. The
invocation of Article 5— the mutual-defense
portion of the North Atlantic Treaty—would
have obviated the need for difficult strate-
gic choices. While few, apart from America’s
extreme right, were rooting for it, Ukraine’s
swift defeat would have limited the blood-
shed and resulted in a comfortable clarity of
costs and risks.
Yet Ukraine refused to cooperate in the
story of its own collapse. A combination of
brilliant national leadership by Volodymyr
Zelensky, widespread patriotic courage,
NATO-provided weapons and lumbering
Russian incompetence has allowed David
to stop Goliath in his tracks. But rather than
being conveniently killed, the well-armed
giant is pausing to refit, resupply and recon-
sider his options.
Among an increasingly vocal group of
policy realists, this shockingly positive out-
come overall remains a long-term defeat for
American interests. The argument goes like
this: A bloody stalemate in Ukraine -- featur-
ing crimes such as the leveling of Mariupol
and Kharkiv—is not only a humanitarian
nightmare. Continuing this unwinnable war
would cause radiating destabilization.
How long will Europe stay united against
Putin when countries face energy short-
ages, lost jobs and the reality of accommo-
dating millions more refugees beyond the 4
million estimated to have already fled? How
will Britons react when they experience, say,
a 50% or more increase in energy costs?
Won’t the German advocates of appeasing
Putin—who are only temporarily quieted
—eventually remake their argument in an
atmosphere of acute economic suffering?
The U.S. economy is not as dependent
as Europe’s on its economic relationship
with Russia. But won’t the disruption of
global energy markets—resulting in higher
prices at the gasoline pump—place tremen-
dous political pressure on Biden? Might
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VOICES
this economic dislocation help return one
of Putin’s few remaining allies—Donald
Trump—to power?
Some foreign policy experts also warn
that crippling Russia might turn it into a
terrorist state, like North Korea, while it is
pushed ever closer to China for support.
“The main challenge today,” Samuel
Charap of the Rand Corp. argued recently
in Foreign Affairs, “is that Ukraine’s brave
resistance—even combined with ever-
greater Western pressure on Moscow—is
highly unlikely to overcome Russia’s mil-
itary advantages, let alone topple Putin.
Without some kind of deal with the Kremlin,
the best outcome is probably a long, ardu-
ous war that Russia is likely to win anyway.”
Such a protracted conflict, he warned, would
“cement the current extreme level of hostil-
ity between Russia and the West,” which
would undermine U.S. interests in regional
and global stability over the long term.
“However distasteful it may be to reach
a compromise with Putin after the carnage
he has unleashed,” continued Charap, “the
United States should work to secure a nego-
tiated settlement to the conflict sooner
rather than later.”
There are at least three problems with
this approach:
First, any likely, hurried peace that is
forced on Ukrainians would almost cer-
tainly involve territorial concessions to
Russia. This would constitute another
massive failure of deterrence, essentially
inviting Putin to threaten and intimidate
non-NATO countries.
Second, while the gung-ho provision
of weapons to the Ukrainian army could
eventually raise some risk of direct NATO
conflict with Russia, we don’t appear close
to that point yet. Biden has been correct to
avoid a no-fly zone, but he is not yet close
to exhausting the number and sophistica-
tion of missiles that could be responsibly
sent. Missiles to take out more planes, more
ships, more tanks. NATO needs to test the
further limits of possible victory against
Russia in Ukraine. It hasn’t yet.
Third, this might be our generation’s
best, and perhaps only, chance to enforce
true limits on the greatest threat to
European and world peace. Under Putin,
Russia is already a rogue, terrorist state,
closely aligned with China. How will the
effective accommodation of Russia’s bar-
baric aggression make global stability more
likely?
Rallying their peoples to accept the tem-
porary economic burdens required to con-
front Putin is now the main challenge for
European leaders and the U.S. president. It
will not be easy, but it will certainly be easier
than following the Zelensky example.
(Washington Post)
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