In a predicable stunt, Russian president Vladimir Putin has sent troops into the self-proclaimed provinces of Donetsk and Lutansk, which are technically part of Ukraine, after they asked him for recognition as part of Russia. This is part and parcel of his run-up to a total invasion of Ukraine, after claiming that it has always been part of Russia from way-way back, so he has a right to claim it as such still, or again, depending on how you look at it.
This is, of course, slimy and disingenuous. He has power and he's going to use it. He can't help himself, kind of like Tony Soprano, who just killed people because he couldn't stand them, as if there needed to be other reasons, which according to him never were necessary.
Pretty nasty stuff: vacantly depraved, much like the president we once had--who probably encouraged him or at least didn't discourage him, the notes from which meeting in Helsinki in 2018 have probably been literally flushed down the toilet. But the good old USA was also guilty of doing very much the same thing--sending soldiers into disputed territory and then daring the other side to do something about it. It was a while ago, but the history books--again, history, that old curmudgeon--make it very clear.
Granted, it was a while back. But the motivations weren't pure, either.
In 1836, Texas managed to win its war with Mexico. It proclaimed itself an independent republic--the vestiges of which we unfortunately carry with us today. More importantly, it proclaimed its "freedom" to do a number of things which its former attachment to Mexico wouldn't allow--most crucially for its economy, having slaves.
So the population grew, especially along the Gulf Coast, where the climate, still humid, encouraged the growth of cotton, which had grown in importance since the invention of the cotton gin by Eli Whitney some fifty years before that, making slavery all the more profitable. But cotton wears out the land, and the need for more arable land becomes obsessive with dependence on that crop.
The slaveocracy saw dollar signs, and it would not be denied. That, the ginned-up American contingent that had moved in, and a presidential campaign that promised U.S. expansion into Mexico, led to Congress annexing Texas officially in 1845. Mexico never recognized it, since the government had never recognized General Santa Anna's original treaty ending the Texas revolution in 1836.
President James Polk, no shrinking violet and smelling blood in the water, sent troops into a disputed area between the Rio Grande and the Nueces River, in southern Texas, in 1846, then sent a diplomatic contingent to Mexico City to negotiate a treaty--which Mexico rejected. Meanwhile, Mexico took the bait--after all, it believed it to be their land, and no treaty had arranged for it otherwise--and skirmishes broke out which allowed us to justify declaring war.
With our white supremacy evident, we thought the war would be quick. It wasn't. (Putin should take note, though he clearly won't.) It took two years and cost lots of casualties and money. War is nearly always a bigger mess than the planners plan for.
And the lands won immediately fell into dispute regarding the status of slavery within them. David Wilmot, a Congressman from Pennsylvania, made a proposal that none of the acquired lands be slave territory--which caused a very big brouhaha in Washington and nationally. Another Congressman from Illinois, fellow named Abe Lincoln, of whom more later, dared the Polk Administration to indicate where American blood had been spilled on American soil to justify the start of the war.
We won, of course, with sheer numbers. It gave off two potent results: One, that the soldiers and officers who fought were primarily from our South, giving them experiential advantages when our Civil War broke out a little more than a decade later; and two, we now had additional land through New Mexico, Arizona, and into California, which we had invaded and therefore claimed during the war. Those lands, and the political battles that emerged from them, would raise the bitterness between slave and non-slave factors. California's gold rush made it suddenly necessary to organize that area, too. Though temporarily headed off with the Great Compromise of 1850, the basic conflict could never be sufficiently quelled.
With echoes of a bitter past, it also led to our entry into World War I, since we caught the Germans trying to lure Mexico into supporting them and potentially re-invading the U.S. in those very areas, diverting what it saw as an otherwise inevitable connection with the French and British on the Western Front. We were, of course, aghast that anybody would try that against us. But nothing, you see, is ever completely forgotten. Justification of past grievances is like a new car attached to the rest of the railroad; you can always do it.
None of this justifies what Putin is presently doing. Ukraine has every right to the integrity of its government and borders. Putin is smart to invade now, since Ukraine, which wants to be in NATO, hasn't yet joined, so that alliance can't, or thinks it can't, actually commit ground forces in support. It's just another way that Putin, who plays by no rules, takes advantage of an organization that believes it must, led by a country which has very recently gotten burned very badly in Afghanistan. So is our most recent ex-president, who continues to delay growing legal issues and gin-up people who want to believe alternative realities. They're branches of the same authoritarian tree.
Whatever economic sanctions we manage to extend in punishment for its gluttony, Russia will also try to respond in kind. Unquestionably, it will try to sabotage our power grid. And if it has anything to do with the mysterious cyber attacks upon individuals, stunning and disorientating them--if you watched "60 Minutes" Sunday, you know all about it--it will try to do that inside the White House, the West Wing steps of which have already been breached.
The Mexican War did not result in a wider war back then. This one might. Hang on tight.
Be well. Be careful. Get a booster. With some luck, I'll see you down the road.
Mister Mark
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