Sunday, March 13, 2022 | 3 a.m.
View more of the Sun's opinion section
When the wisdom of the barber chair matches the common sense at home, the way forward is clear.
I have been a regular customer of my friend and hair stylist (he likes that term, I like barber) for much of my adult life. Knowing Tony these many decades has been one of the great pleasures of my life.
What I enjoy most — besides that he makes me presentable despite my considerable shortcomings — is what I learn while sitting in his chair. Tony is a decent and honorable man blessed with an insight into people that cuts through most of the facades and defenses that define the human condition. And that makes his opinion on all manner of subjects worthy of respect.
Much closer to home my dear wife, Myra, has forever insisted that her ability to read people, their motives and what makes them tick, especially when it comes to their interactions with yours truly, is worthy of great respect too.
I have to admit that Myra is rarely wrong about such matters, which makes hers an invaluable opinion and one necessary to my well-being. (I know this admission will come back to haunt me).
These past couple of weeks, the entire world — except perhaps the misinformed world of Russia — has witnessed the wholesale murders of Ukrainian men, women and children at the hands of Russian President Vladimir Putin. And the entire world — except for the handful of obvious enablers in China , Iran and North Korea — have recoiled from the horrors that Putin’s war against humanity has played on our televisions without surcease.
Almost every home in America is talking about Ukraine and what to do about Russia’s unprovoked, unwarranted and unholy attack on innocent people. Sometimes the discussions focus on the price of gas but most often the concerns expressed are not dissimilar to those from another time; a time when Germany’s Adolf Hitler had designs on Europe and, once successful, designs on the rest of the modern world.
Back in the 1930’s when Hitler was taking all that wasn’t his, Europe was gripped in panic and fear for what country would come next in Hitler’s plan for world domination.
Most countries were only too happy to turn away from the brutality in their neighbor’s states in the hopes that they would not be next.
They were wrong. They were wrong to appease, wrong to give in and wrong to act out of fear of what might happen.
That history has been written. Only after a reluctant-to-get-involved United States entered the war — Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor left us no choice — did we lead the Allies to a victory over the sociopathic brutality that was the Third Reich.
Both Tony and Myra agree that history’s lesson on how to deal with brutal dictators must not be lost on America today. Both Tony and Myra are concerned that as we continue to rationalize America’s response to Putin’s brutality, we must not forget the words of our wartime President Franklin Roosevelt. He warned us after the attack on Pearl Harbor that we have nothing to fear but fear itself.
What should be America’s response to the Ukrainian people who are begging for help? And what should be our response to Putin, who has learned that American fear of the “what-if” allows him to push us around and have his way with us?
In short, we can argue all day and night whether fighter jets, boots on the ground, or more sophisticated weapons of war are justified in our common desire to save the lives of Ukrainians. We can tie ourselves in knots trying to find that fine line beyond which we must not cross for fear of nuclear oblivion.
History provides us examples of the kind of brinksmanship that defined the Cold War and the hot prospect of nuclear annihilation. American leadership has risen to the task before. It needs to do so again.
None of us knows for certain what will happen if America says “nyet” to Putin. That’s the scary unknown in all of this.
But at the end of the day, both Myra and Tony have summed it up in a way that we can all understand.
This is a simple question of right and wrong. And it is wrong to allow these murders to continue any longer.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
