The oxymoron of war.

 

In many nations tonight, people are outraged that Russian planes bombed a maternity hospital in Ukraine. One case made headlines—a young mother-to-be, in labor, who died, along with her baby. The cry is that bombing such a civilian facility violates the rules of war. This heartbreaking case is classified not as a casualty of war but as a violation of the rules.

The idea of rules of war has always struck me as an oxymoron. We’re not talking about a chess game here—we’re talking about deadly combat in which lives are brutally lost. Who sets the rules? And who says whether you follow them? According to Wikipedia, violations of the rules of war include intentionally killing civilians or intentionally killing prisoners of war, torture, taking hostages, unnecessarily destruction of civilian property, deception by perfidy, wartime sexual violence, pillaging, the conscription of children in the military, committing genocide or ethnic cleansing, the granting of no quarter despite surrender, and flouting the legal distinctions of proportionality and military necessity.”

Thos rules leave little leeway for what you can legally do in a war, but Mr. Putin seems to have violated most of them. Who is going to say, “Tsk, tsk! You know that’s against the rules.”? If you’re hell-bent on killing people and conquering another nation, why should you listen to rules? I’m sure authorities from the Nuremberg trials had a good sense of what to do and some success. I am less hopeful about Putin being brought to justice, and yet he is just as inhumane as the Nazi officers tried at Nuremberg.

Walter Cronkite, the late, great newsman who fought in WWII, once wrote, “War itself is, of course, a form of madness. It is hardly a civilized pursuit. It’s amazing how we spend so much time inventing devices to kill each other and so little time working on how we might achieve peace.”

One of the most poignant clips I’ve seen recently showed a young woman, dressed in outdoor gear, in an apartment clearly destroyed by bombs. The camera panned to show the extent of the damage, and it was horrific. But she sat, pulled protective blanket off a piano, and began to play an excruciatingly beautiful piece. The caption was something like, “One Last Time.”

We are horrified and yet helpless. We contribute to various welfare agencies—I sent money to the World Kitchen recently since Chef Jose Andres is feeding the thousands of refugees who stream across the Ukraine border into Poland. We pray, beseeching whatever god we pray to, to spare the Ukrainian people, recognize their courage, deliver them from evil. Our country supports them in every way possible, short of igniting WWIII, which no one, except perhaps Putin, wants.

And yet, we are helpless. Decisions are made by governments, and we can either support or condemn. My personal take is that it is a time for us to pull together, to condemn aggression and to support the best efforts of our president and his advisors, both in and out of Congress and the military. Others choose to disagree and blame him for weakness, for the high price of gasoline, for everything but the weather—and they may get around to that too. Many who carp and complain can’t seem to get beyond themselves to see that we are all in this boat together—what happens to democracy in Ukraine will eventually make its way to our shores. Indeed, we had a close call last November in the election and ever since while we combat the “Big Lie.”

To me, it’s foolhardy to grieve for what’s happening in Ukraine but take comfort in the fact that wars will always be fought on foreign soil, never make their way to the U.S. I wish I could feel confident about that. I may be in my twilight years, but I have grandchildren to whom I leave the world—and I want it t be a world of democracy.

Meantime, life does go on. Friend Subie took Jordan and me to the Fort Worth Club today for a pre-birthday lunch for Jordan. I couldn’t help myself. I sat there in elegant surroundings, eating a sophisticated lunch, enjoying the company of two of my favoirte people, and thought, “People are dying. They are hiding in subway stations and basements. They are dying in maternity hospitals.” I remembered seeing an old woman in Ukraine who said they just want us to pray for them, and then they want us to go on and enjoy life. I did what she said—it was a terrific, happy lunch, full of laughter. But always, these days, there’s that little cloud hanging over us. Or maybe it’s a big cloud.