You and I are in agreement with respect to China. Let us set that aside.
Russia's power base will be very different if it successfully absorbs Ukraine. And so will our adversaries' appreciation of the US and its allies as a threat to their ambitions. I frankly don't think we have had a more serious challenge to our long term national interests in decades (I include the Middle East). It frustrates me that seems incomprehensible to so many on my side.
The Russian linked churches action was an obvious and necessary response to a specific faction of the Russian Orthodox Church in Ukraine supporting Russian clandestine activity inside the country while it is engaged in an existential conflict. People like Tucker Carlson have exaggerated this to imply that Ukraine is shutting down all churches - which to use one of Tucker's favorite phrases is "a lie." Roughly 65 - 70% of the Ukrainian population is Eastern Orthodox. A much smaller percentage are of the Russian Orthodox sect.
The sanctimony is even more ridiculous if one recalls just a little history. It is perhaps worth remembering that we took far more drastic measures when last involved in existential conflicts. We merely imprisoned whole families in concentration camps and confiscated the businesses and livelihoods of American citizens who happened to be of Japanese ancestry in WWII. In 1939 the American Bund Party held its rally in Madison Square Garden. A little over a year later it was outlawed and its leaders imprisoned. Lincoln closed opposition newspapers and suspended habeaus corpus - locking up perceived enemies for the duration of the war.
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Nations do what is necessary when fighting to the death against another power. Even our country.
I obviously can't prove it, but I more convinced daily that Trump's position with respect to Ukraine has nothing to do with him being "ant-war" or acting in our national interests and everything to do with his self-indulgent animus for Zelensky. Zelensky had the good sense to not involve himself in American domestic politics, and Trump, in typical childish fashion, finds that unforgivable and far more important than what is best for the country.