Ukraine
In 1836, a group of Texas volunteers held at bay the army of Mexico’s Santa Ana for 13 days. Horrifically outnumbered and outgunned, the approximately 200 volunteers beat back over 1600 men. If you’re counting, that’s a force 8 times larger than the occupiers. In the end, most of the occupiers were killed. Only a handful were released as a waring to the rest of Texas military: other resistors will meet the same fate.
Fast-forward to 2022, and in a similar effort, the larger and better equipped Russian military, estimated at over two million troops (including reserves), decide to invade Ukraine, who used to be a sister nation under the USSR umbrella. Ukraine has approximately 900k troops (active and reserve). That’s at least a difference of 2-1, and we’re almost a week into the conflict. Both attacks were spurred on by an historic claim to the land.
What happened to Texas? Well, after they managed to stave off Mexico, they recognized that they needed the help of the United States to keep Mexico at bay, so they applied to be part of the United States, and were summarily granted access.
Fast-forward to today, and Ukraine, who were already in the process of gaining access to NATO, have now formally applied to the European Union. The parallels mount between Texas’ attempts at independence and Ukraine’s own struggle for self-determination. Any Texan should recognize these parallels. And Texans should support Ukraine. In fact, we should all be supporting Ukraine, because to do less is to adopt a policy of appeasement, which, despite what Ted Cruz thinks, does not involve sanctions or arming the Ukranians.
In fact, what the United States is doing looks a lot like what the French did (who did not surrender lightly in WW2 or WW1, but took heavy casualties despite whatever Ron Desantis will try to tell you). That is, the United States is arming the Ukranians because to do more would be to go directly to war with Russia, which is good for nobody.
During this podcast, Don and Chuck chat about Ukraine and the unfortunate Trumpian response and the response of his acolytes. Hint: they really, really love Putin.
