Put the ‘U’ back in US of A

W
e join the world in watching with horror as Vladimir Putin’s Russian army marches brazenly and belligerently through a sovereign nation on its western border.
The actions of the Russian leader harken images of Hitler and World War II, and demonstrate the falsehood of the notion that the nations of this planet would never allow themselves to be  plunged into such a conflict again.
At the same time, the response of the world to Putin’s aggression should give us hope that our leaders — and mankind — have learned from our long and tortured history. The fact that so many nations are responding so forcefully to Russia indicates that we may have learned at least some of the lessons from our past, and it appears that the international community is resolved to hold a line on an autocratic ruler who threatens the delicate balance of world peace.
But the conflict in Ukraine isn’t just an international incident, and it is our hope that we can learn lessons from the internal divisions within that nation as well. Those divisions were exploited and magnified by that same foreign autocrat, who manipulated Ukrainians into conflict with each other so he could use it as an excuse to intervene and bring the world to the brink of war.
Throughout our history, Americans have responded to threats or tragedies by coming together with fellow Americans to overcome our grief and fear and emerge better and stronger from whatever trial we’ve faced.
It is no secret that our nation has become divided in the 21st century, and there should be no more argument about whether or not Vladimir Putin contributed to that division — just as he did in Ukraine.
We hope that Putin’s forces will be turned back quickly, and with an absolute minimum of bloodshed and human loss, but we pray just as fervently that the ultimate folly of Putin’s action is that it stems the tide of division he worked so hard to create in our own nation by triggering America’s instinct to unify and embrace each other when we’ve been harmed or threatened.
Vladimir Putin spent a bunch of years and a whole lot of money and resources trying to divide us, and regardless of what happens in eastern Europe, the best way to beat Putin over the long-term is to commit ourselves to putting the “United” back into the United States of America.