Ukraine & The Perfect Recipe For War. Act Three: The Crippling Cost Of The Putin Witch Hunt

How the U.S. turns world leaders into devils to justify NATO expansion, proxy wars, and a multi-billion dollar arms bonanza. But at what cost?

Act three of a series. For acts one and two, click here and here.

Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.

-        Eric Hoffer

Like a bad case of herpes, witch hunts festered, blistered, and spread throughout Germany from 1581 to 1631. Anything could be proof of witchcraft – a sick child, a dead dog, or a bad crop season. Anyone could be accused. In the town of Fulda, a very pregnant Merga Bien was accused of murdering her second husband and being a witch. In Bamberg, the beloved mayor Johannes Junius was accused of witchcraft. In Würzburg, 300 children were accused of having sexual intercourse with the devil.

Anyone could make the accusations – angry neighbors, jealous family members, bratty children, or bipolar coworkers. If they could get two people to back them up, the accused would be “put to the question.” An interogator would use torture to loosen their tongues and milk out a confession.

In Ober Wittighausen, Gertrauta Conrad confessed not only to being a witch but also that Satin came to her meadow in the middle of the day. He donned a black hat with a black feather and demanded that she sleep with him. She willingly obeyed and took his cold organ inside her not once but twice. First in her bedroom and then again in her kitchen. The confession came only after she was “put to the question” with a device called a “strappado.” The interrogator tied her arms behind her back with a rope that passed over a pulley. Each pull raised her arms higher and higher. Her stubborn muscles tried to resist. But the steady pull cranked her arms over her head and lifted her off the ground. Her strained shoulder sockets bore the dead weight of her body for five long hours. Cartilage ripping. Tendons stretching. The pain, excruciating.

But this wasn’t an anomaly. Many German contemporaries of Gertrauta Conrad suffered the same fate. The strappado was one of many devices used. Thumbscrews crushed the bones in the thumbs. Foot presses crushed the bones in the feet. And iron boots crushed the bones in the lower legs. The iron spider ripped the breasts off its victims. (They wouldn’t want the Devil suckling sweet nectar from a Satin-enabler’s bosom, would they?)

Once someone confessed, their destiny was sealed. Sometimes they’d hack off their hands. Then they’d nail them to a stake, light them on fire, and burn them alive. In total, Germany executed 26,000 so-called witches.

One can’t help but wonder if these were honest confessions or the result of brutal torture used to break one’s will. But that’s not how medieval Christians saw things. They thought confession freed one from the Devil. Hence, any means, no matter how brutal, that got someone to confess was justified.

In 1996, 60 Minutes interviewed then-U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Madeline Albright. She was asked about the brutal sanctions the United Nations put on Iraq.

We have heard that half a million [Iraqi] children have died. I mean, that is more children than died in Hiroshima… Is the price worth it?

Some have claimed that the Iraqi government doctored the data. Even if they’re right, at the time of the interview Albright didn’t dispute the numbers. Her response to the interviewer’s question is revealing.

I think that is a very hard choice. But the price, we think, the price is worth it.

Her rationale was that the threat of Saddam Hussein was so great, any means – no matter how brutal – to free Iraqis, Kuwaitis, and the world from him was well worth it.

Make the devil big enough, bad enough, and worthy enough, and any terrible deed is well justified – even wholesale murder.

What happened to those who defended the accused or were skeptical of witchcraft? They had a book on how to handle that called “Malleus Maleficarum.”

The book states,

Who is so dense as to maintain . . . that all their witchcraft and injuries are phantastic and imaginary, when the contrary is evident to the senses of everybody?"

Someone in cahoots with the devil of course. These people would suffer the same fate as the accused.

A worthy cause can gather people together, give them a sense of group identity, and bring out their better angels. But give people a worthy devil and you’ll bind them together against a common enemy. People will think and feel not for themselves but with the group. Any criticism of the group and what it stands for will be perceived as an existential threat by each of its members. Those who call out the enemy are rewarded and those who defend her are punished.

In early October 2001, during a nasty spat with a family member, I shamefully parroted George W Bush’s words: “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists." With a belly full of jingoism, I added, “We need to do whatever it takes to get the terrorists.” I wasn’t the only one bewitched by this idiocy.

Attorney General John Ashcroft’s echoed similar sentiments when he commented on Bush’s critics.

They give ammunition to America's enemies and pause to America's friends. They encourage people of goodwill to remain silent in the face of evil.

And so did Bill O'Reilly’s ominous suggestion: we should prosecute war protestors.

When I grew critical of the Library Provisions (Section 215) of the Patriot Act, people quipped back, “You have nothing to fear unless you have something to hide.” The implication? Unless, well, you’re a terrorist. 

The 2000 elections came down to 537 votes in Florida. Animus filled the hearts of Democrats including mine. The country was divided. But 911 brought us together against a common enemy and fortified our love for ‘merica. Anyone who harbored or defended the enemy and anyone who questioned our intentions was also the enemy.

During the 2016 election cycle, suspicions of Russian meddling fomented a new McCarthyism that would last for years. People fell into the old friend-enemy binary thinking again: you’re either with the U.S. or you’re an agent of the Kremlin. No room for nuance. No room for disagreement.  

People made wild accusations with little or no evidence. And others believed them wholeheartedly. Malcolm Nance lied and told Joy Reed that Jill Stein had a show on Russian Television (RT) - a not-so-subtle intimation that she was an agent of the Kremlin. Media watch group FAIR urged MSNBC to correct the error multiple times. The request was ignored.

Adam H. Johnson @adamjohnsonNYC

this by @MalcolmNance was an out right lie. I'm curious: will @JoyAnnReid correct on air Saturday? @DrJillStein

Hillary Clinton claimed the Russians were grooming Tulsi Gabbard as a third-party candidate and doubled down on Nance’s claim about Jill Stein.

Those who defended the accused, criticized Russiagate, or disapproved of U.S.-involvement in Ukraine, suffered the consequences. Kathy Young accused Columbia’s Stephen F. Cohen of being a Putin apologist. Ann Applebaum accused University of Chicago’s John Mearsheimer of being a Putin propagandist.  And Malcolm Nance called Glenn Greenwald a useful idiot for the Russian Government.

A worthy devil gives one the opportunity to shine and become a worthy hero.

The majority of witch hunts in Europe during the 16th and 17th centuries happened primarily in Germany and specifically in areas with both Catholics and Protestants. Each brand of Christianity was competing for market shares by proving they could give people greater protection from the Devil than the other.

Peter Leason and Jacob Russ argue,

Similar to how contemporary Republican and Democrat candidates focus campaign activity in political battlegrounds during elections to attract the loyalty of undecided voters, historical Catholic and Protestant officials focused witch-trial activity in confessional battlegrounds during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation to attract the loyalty of undecided Christians.

Leading up to 911, George W. Bush had an approval rating amongst Democrats of 27%. But ten days after 911 and one day after he uttered the words “Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists" his approval rating amongst Democrats shot up to 84%. In 2003, days before the U.S. invaded Iraq, he had an approval rating amongst Democrats of 31%. But after the invasion, his approval rating amongst Democrats ballooned to 48%. Why? Terrorism. This very nebulous but worthy devil turned him into a worthy hero – even amongst Democrats.

Worthy devils cover up one’s real agenda – greed for power, money, and resources. Witch hunts were big business in 16th and 17th century Germany. Historian Rossell Hope Robbins writes,

Witch hunting was self-sustaining and became a major trade all battening on the savings of their victims.

Father Cornelius Loos, the first German critic of witch hunts, writes,

Wretched creatures are compelled by the severity of the torture to confess things they have never done, and so by cruel butchery innocent lives are taken; and, by a new alchemy, gold and silver are coined from human blood.

Victims and their families were billed for their torture and executions. The booty was divvied up amongst judges, doctors, clergymen, scribes, and torturers.

While some scholars have contested the amount of property and assets taken from these poor souls, it’s indisputable that people received profit for doling out pain.

These crimes look like schoolmarm infractions compared to what the United States does to other countries. It uses worthy devils to loot and drain them of every last drop of their wealth.

Two noteworthy examples are Guatemala and the Congo.

In 1950s Guatemala, land meant everything. Peasants dominated the population. They were poor, illiterate, and had only one skill: farming. Alas, 2% of landholders owned 72% of the arable land. After Jacabo Arbenz was democratically elected, he passed Decree 900. Any owner with property over 223 acres had to sell any unused excess land back to the government. The property was to be meted out to the landless.

United Fruit Company (UFCO) was the big bad baron of Central America. The American-owned multinational cooperation monopolized the banana industry there. In Guatemala alone, it owned 42% of the land. And there was no way in hell it was going to allow Arbenz to end its banana bonanza.

UFCO had little problem convincing Eisenhower to approve a CIA-backed coup. Their attorneys were none other than Sullivan and Cromwell’s Dulles brothers. One was the Secretary of State and the other was the CIA director.

Under codename PBSUCESS, Allen Dulles replaced Arbenz with the brutal dictator Carlos Castillo Armas. Like an obedient U.S. puppet, Armas quickly brought Guatemala’s dalliance with democracy to an end.

But here’s the key part. The State Department banned weapon sales to Arbenz. They also prevented Canada, Germany, and Rhodesia from selling him arms. He was desperate and bought them from the Soviet satellite Czechoslovakia. The CIA used this as “proof” that Arbenz was a Soviet devil.

The CIA controlled how major media cables framed and sold the story. Although thin on evidence, it was the height of McCarthyism and Russophobic Americans ate it up.

A few years later, the same charade played out in central Africa’s Congo. Inspired by Ghana’s Kwame Nkrumah, a young and charismatic Patrice Lumumba demanded Belgium colonizers give Congo its independence and grant them free elections. Belgium feared a violent civil war and capitulated. Lumumba became Congo’s first democratically elected Prime Minister.

Congo’s home to the largest untapped resources in the world. It’s famous for its diamond, copper, uranium, and cobalt reserves. Belgium and American multinational corporations were not going to let Lumumba cut into their profits. One of those corporations was American Metal Climax (AMAX). William Burden, then-U.S. ambassador to Belgium, held a directorship at the company. Sullivan and Cromwell represented AMAX. Hence, our old friend and CIA director, Allen Dulles, was eager to help.

When Katanga, Congo’s most valuable province, tried to secede with the support of Belgium, Lumumba asked the United States and the United Nations for help. They refused. So he went to Nakita Khrushchev. That was enough to paint Lumumba as a Soviet devil and justify a coup.

Eight days later, at a security council meeting, Dulles warned the Eisenhour Whitehouse,

We are faced with a person who is a Castro or worse. It is safe to go on the assumption that Lumumba has been bought by the communists.

Eisenhower fell for Dulles’ histrionics. Declassified documents reveal that:

The president expressed his wish that Lumumba would fall into a river full of crocodiles.

At a Whitehouse meeting one month later, Robert Johnson recalls Eisenhower:

Turning to Allen Dulles, director of the CIA, ‘in the full hearing of all those in attendance, and saying something to the effect that Lumumba should be eliminated.

Dulles instructed Laurence Devlin, the C.I.A. station chief in the Congo, that:

Lumumba's removal must be an urgent and prime objective . . . and a high priority of our covert action.

He followed suit, jailed Lumumba, and replaced him with U.S. puppet Mobutu Sese Seko.

When Lumumba escaped, he was caught, flown to Katanga, tortured, and executed by firing squad. His body was chopped up and dissolved in sulfuric acid to eliminate the evidence.

Conventional wisdom is that both the CIA and the Belgium government had plots to assassinate Lumumba but never followed through. Instead, secessionist leader Moise Tshombe carried out the execution.

The U.S. Senate's Church Committee concluded that there is "no evidence of CIA involvement in bringing about the death of Lumumba."

But Stephen Weissman points out,

… classified U.S. government documents, including a chronology of covert actions approved by a National Security Council (NSC) subgroup… reveal U.S. involvement in -- and significant responsibility for -- the death of Lumumba.

Katanga had repeatedly called for Lumumba’s scalp. Devlin told the Church Committee,

I think there was a general assumption, once we learned that he had been sent to Katanga, that his goose was cooked.

Devlin knew three days ahead of time that they planned to take Lumumba to Katanga but didn’t inform Washington until after Lumumba was tortured, shot, and killed.

Devlin became a de facto member of the Congolese government and turned Mobutu into a full-blown marionette. He made policy decisions and staffed officials for Mobutu.

While Devlin ran Mobutu’s brain, American diamond dealer Maurice Tempelsman strummed the strings of his greedy heart. Tempelsman had his slimy tentacles in just about everything: the CIA, politicians, and Jackie Onassis’ pantalones. He persuaded Mobutu to replace Belgium-owned Union Minière du Haut-Katanga Union (UMHK) with a consortium of mostly American corporations. In exchange, he gave Mobutu 20% ownership. The Congo would lurch into crippling poverty, while Mobutu and others ransacked its wealth.

After Dulles retired from the CIA, he admitted,

I think that we overrated the Soviet danger, let’s say, in the Congo.

In other words, he deceptively painted Lumumba as a Soviet devil and used it as a pretext to reduce the Congo to a client state of the U.S. – one designed to serve its interests.

The world is full of devils. But, as discussed in Act Two, not all devils are worthy. A worthy devil binds people together against a common enemy and turns a nation into a hero. A worthy devil helps justify regime change, war, looting a country of its resources, and crimes against humanity.  

Patrice Lumumba, Jacabo Arbenz, Gertrauta Conrad, and the 300 kiddos accused of having sex with Satan were all worthy devils. But were they actually devils? No. To be a devil, you must be an existential threat. In each case, the threat was fabricated and/or exaggerated.

Is Vladimir Putin a worthy devil? Indeed. But is he actually a devil?

The ex-KGBer was the perfect right-hand man for Leningrad mayor Anatoly Sobchak. He helped him orchestrate a panoply of scams, covering the gamut from protection rackets to a raw-materials-for-food grift. (While Leningrad went hungry, Putin and Sobchak most likely got filthy rich.) When criminal charges were brought against Sobchak, Putin secured his safe exit out of the country. When Yury Scuratov brought charges against Boris Yeltsin, Putin squashed the problem. He went on television and showed a video of a very rotund Scuratov cavorting with hookers. During the Second Chechen War, there was a hostage crisis at the Dubrovka Theater. Putin’s way of dealing with it? Brutal but effective. He pumped an unknown chemical agent into the theater. It killed every terrorist. But also 130 of the hostages. By all means, Putin is no angel.

But is Putin actually a devil? Is he an existential threat? Many claim yes because he’s a madman with a huge nuclear arsenal who plans to turn the whole Eastern bloc red again. As evidence, they often point to an essay he penned in 2021 and an aggressive campaign he’s carried out over his tenure. A campaign, they purport, is designed to preserve and enlarge Russia’s influence. The most notable examples of this campaign are the Second Chechen War, the 2008 Russo-Georgian War, the annexation of Crimea, the civil war in the Donbas, and the 2022 Invasion of Ukraine.

While reviewing each one, let’s ask ourselves three questions: One, did Putin have legitimate concerns? Two, would an American leader put in the same situation act the same way? And three, do any of these events genuinely suggest that he intends to rebuild the Soviet Union?

Putin’s Essay

As evidence of Putin’s plan to rebuild the Soviet Union, Congressman Ro Khanna points to an essay penned by Putin called On The Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians.

Whether or not you feel for Putin’s grievances or agree with his argument about linguistic and ethnic unity among Russians, Ukrainians and other people of the Eastern bloc misses the point. Putin never explicitly states that he plans to bring back the Soviet Union. It would take inkblot-style interpretations to arrive at such a conclusion.

Moreover, these accusations reek of a double standard. After president Joe Biden said about Putin, “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power,” Ro Khanna did damage control and said,

The president was speaking from his heart, but it is not U.S. policy to see regime change.

Washington is bloated with endless talking heads, empty suits, and mouthpieces committing this same double standard. 

The Chechen Wars

In both Chechen Wars, Russia massacred tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Yeltsin was merciless, Putin was worse. He reduced Grozny, the Chechen capital, to a husk. But were Russia’s claims to Chechnya legitimate?

During the First Chechen War waged by Boris Yeltsin, Bill Clinton was asked if Chechnya had the right to separate. His response is telling.

I would remind you that we once had a civil war in our country... over the proposition that Abraham Lincoln gave his life for: That no state had a right to withdraw from our union… [The United States] has taken the position that Chechnya is a part of Russia.

There’s no doubt that Clinton was trying to excuse Boris Yeltsin’s brutality. As Max Blumenthal has pointed out, that’s one of the “rewards of being a U.S. vassal.”

But Clinton’s bigger claim still holds: Chechnya doesn’t have the right to separate. Let’s unpack this because Clinton’s argument puts into context Putin’s intentions. When the Soviet Union broke up, each of its republics and satellite states had the right to declare its independence. Alas, Chechnya was neither a Soviet republic nor a satellite state. Instead, it was just part of Russia and still is.

If a state, say California, tried to secede, what would the U.S. do? In lockstep with what it did during the American Civil War, it would stop it. And it would be warranted to do so.

The Russo-Georgian War

Like Gorbachev and Yeltsin, Putin perceives NATO edging closer to Russia’s borders as an existential threat. Is he crazy to think so? How would the United States act if Mexico joined the Warsaw Pact and put Soviet military bases in Tijuana?  

The U.S. Monroe Doctrine states that no distant great power shall install military forces in the Western hemisphere and especially not on its borders. Kennedy felt the Soviets had violated the Monroe Doctrine when they put nuclear missiles in Cuba. One of the main reasons they did this was because NATO put nuclear missiles in Turkey and pointed them at the U.S.S.R. The crisis was resolved by both countries removing the nuclear missiles. If you think this is about only nuclear weapons, think again. Another crisis broke out in 1979 when U.S. Intelligence determined the Soviets had 3,000 combat troops in Cuba. Senator Frank Church captured the collective bipartisan sentiment:

The United States cannot permit the Soviets to establish a military base on Cuban soil, nor can we allow Cuba to be used as a springboard for real or threatened Russian military intervention in the hemisphere.

Put simply, the United States views the presence of any military forces - nuclear or not - of a distant great power in its vicinity as an existential threat. Russia does as well.

At a 2008 Bucharest Summit, George W. Bush said Georgia and Ukraine will become part of NATO. Germany and France thought this was a bad idea. One that would antagonize Russia. But both countries caved to Bush’s whims - a hint at who controls NATO. Vladimir Putin wasn’t shy about expressing his anxiety. Russia had begrudgingly tolerated two troughs of NATO expansion: One in 1999, the other in 2004. But this time, they drew a red line and would not accept it. That same year, Putin sent a strong message when his military crushed Georgia and blocked president Mikheil Saakashvili from reincorporating two separatist regions that bordered Russia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, back into his country.

The Annexation Of Crimea

During the reign of Catherine the Great, the Russians constructed the Sevastopol naval base between the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov on the Crimean Peninsula. It’s their only warm water port and how they project their naval power. Khrushchev gifted it to Ukraine in ’53. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union up until 2014, the Russians leased the base from Ukraine. In the wake of the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, the specter of the port being turned into a NATO military base was enough to annex the oblast.

The Civil War In The Donbas

In February 2022, the Russian Duma passed a resolution to recognize the Donbas’ Luhansk and Donetsk as independent republics. Putin signed it into law. Later that same month, he invaded Ukraine. Some think these are strong signs that he’ll annex the Donbas. They may be right. But was annexation his intention all along?

The Minsk II accords contain the key to understanding Putin’s original motives. It called for both sides to put down their arms, release hostages, and hold elections that would give Donetsk and Luhansk “special status.”

On Putin’s interpretation, “special status” is not annexation to Mother Russia. Quite the contrary. Instead, it would return the Donbas to Ukrainian sovereignty. More specifically, he believes, along with Germany, that the Minks II accords call for the federalization of Ukraine. Call for Donetsk and Luhansk to become separate states within Ukraine. This would potentially give these states the power to veto Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Simply put, Putin’s motives were not to turn Ukraine red but to block NATO expansion.

The 2022 Invasion Of Ukraine

Edward Wong and Laura Jakes and others claim that “Putin’s insistence that he needed to prevent Ukraine from joining NATO” is a pretext for war. Why? They argue that Ukraine isn’t a member and membership doesn’t look likely in the foreseeable future.

But there’s ample evidence Ukraine is already a de facto member of NATO.

Since Trump, the U.S. and many of its NATO allies have openly and officially sent Ukraine lethal arms. One of many examples is Turkey arming Ukraine with Bayraktar TB2 lethal drones. And to make the point even stronger, after the 2022 invasion, NATO deluged the country with weapons.

In July 2021, Ukraine and the United States co-hosted a major naval exercise in the Black Sea region involving navies from 32 countries.

Even the pro-NATO Raytheon-funded Atlantic Council in a moment of honesty admitted,

Ukraine and Georgia matter to NATO. Even in their current status as partners rather than members, they already de facto defend the alliance’s eastern flank and play a crucial role in the security of the Black Sea region.

The Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Adam Schiff and former director of the CIA Leon Panetta have both said that this is a U.S. proxy war with Russia.

Russia has good reason to fear the consequences of a color revolution and a U.S.-backed regime change. They had a dress rehearsal under Boris Yeltsin. A group of Harvard economists with a revolving door in and out of the Clinton Administration and the World Bank put Russia through several rounds of shock therapy that left its economy in shambles It's a brutal form of perestroika (economic restructuring). One in which the U.S. franken-stiches its economic structures onto a country, so it can get its money-grubbing tentacles into it.

In 1991, the shock therapists convinced Yeltsin to lift price controls. In 1992, the shock therapists began privatizing Russia's industries. What appeared to be promising turned into a monstrous parody of the old proverb “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” The government gave citizens privatization checks. They could sell, trade, or use them to purchase shares in these newly privatized enterprises. Those with big bankrolls bought up all the shares.

By 1994, hyperinflation spun out of control. Things cost 2000 times what they did a few years earlier. Russians turned on the bloated and vodka-soaked Yeltsin. His ‘96 reelection campaign was on life-support. So he took a 10.2 billion loan from the IMF. But they required more shock therapy. The shock therapists prescribed the most brutal shock therapy yet. In a loans-for-shares scheme, they made Yeltsin auction off the rest of Russia’s industries to a small group of people nicknamed Semibankirschina. Even George Soros got in on the fun and made out like a bandit. The scam was simple. The filthy rich loaned Russia money and took shares in these companies as collateral. When Russia defaulted on the loans, they became the new owners and Russia could pay its bills. This created a Russian oligarchical class overnight.

The Nord Stream pipelines are the big elephants in the room. George Bush opposed Nord Stream I. Obama opposed Nord Stream II. And Trump’s sanctions brought the Nord Stream II project to a halting screech. Why the opposition? Europe gets 45% of its gas from Russia. Much of it comes from the Nord Stream I. Nord Stream II would double the annual capacity of Nord Stream I.

The United States knows all too well that if you control resources, you control other states. Nord Stream II would create an energy dependency and give Russia economic and political leverage. The United States was not going to let that happen.

In May of 2021, to mend U.S. relations with Germany, Biden waivered sanctions on the Nord Stream II construction. But Secretary of State Anthony Blinken made clear that the waiver was conditional. It was based on conditions designed to make Putin look like a devil and Biden look like a hero. Conditions tailor-made for Russia to violate. And conditions engineered to justify the U.S. reinstating sanctions. Since 2008, Russia has been crystal-clear that it will not tolerate NATO expansion into Georgia and Ukraine. By NATO making Ukraine a de facto member, it antagonized Russia into violating these conditions. Now Biden can use the rationale: Aw shucks. I tried to make peace and give Russia the benefit of the doubt. But Putin’s just a bad guy who violated the terms.

Once people think someone is a devil, they’ll see everything as a war between good and evil. A war they must do anything to win. Even things that strip away their own rights. Even things that inflict a world of suffering on others. And even things that slaughter innocent people. They see the threat as so scary that they feel it’s necessary to silence people who question their judgment and demand they blindly agree with them. But what’s the cost of wrongly labeling a group of people, a head of state, or even a whole country a devil? What’s the cost of exaggerating or fabricating a threat? After 911, many people saw the nebulous word “terrorism” as an existential threat. Was the cost of the “War on Terror” worth it? Was the cost of 20 years in Afghanistan where hired guns were getting high and arms dealers were getting rich on U.S. taxpayer dollars worth it? Was the cost of illegal torture programs, which included rectal feeding, worth it? Was the transformation of the U.S. into a surveillance state that would make George Orwell blush worth it? Many thought Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Was the cost of an almost ten-year U.S. occupation of Iraq worth it? Are the people of Iraq better off? Is the American taxpayer better off? Is the world a safer place?

Like Saddam Hussien, Vladimir Putin isn’t someone you’d want to leave your child alone with. If he drunkenly crashed his plane in the middle of Siberia and a sleuth of bears devoured his tiny body, I’d probably chuckle. So would people who believe Putin is a devil. They are certain that he installed a Soviet-friendly puppet into the Whitehouse and reduced the U.S. to a Russian client state. They think that he has plans to turn the Eastern bloc red again. Because they see him as an existential threat, they’ll do anything to stop him and silence anyone who questions them. These are beliefs I do not share. And my question to them is: If you’re wrong, will the cost be worth it?

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