“We are in a very dangerous position,” said NBC reporter Kier Simmons this morning. He was reporting from Moscow about the disarray of the Russian military leadership. About the disarray, this from William Alberque, the director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in Berlin. “There are real questions you are seeing question on the (Russian official) news. ‘Who is leading us? What is going on? Who are these donkeys? We have traitors among us, we need to shoot them.’ That is some of the worm-eating-its-own tail stuff that should be sending alarm bells up the chain.” (Today’s New York Times, A11).
Kier Simmons also said when Mr. Putin is in trouble, he escalates. From the BBC: “President Biden said the reason the Russian leader had not been ‘not joking’ when he talked about using tactical nuclear, biological or chemical weapons – ‘because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.’ ‘For the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis, we have a direct threat to the use of nuclear weapons, if in fact things continue down the path they'd been going,’ Mr. Biden told fellow Democrats. "We have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis."
I remember the Cuban missile crisis. Church that Sunday was packed. I should say the gym was packed; our new church hadn’t been built yet. How many Americans in our less religious time will offer “prayers, intercessions, and thanksgiving…for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way”? (1 Timothy 2:1-2).
“Let peace spring up speedily and avert the danger in which we are involved. Lord, to Thee belongs the honor of shattering swords, cutting spears in sunder, and burning chariots in the fire. O God of love, hear the cries of those who are now surrounded by dangers, and are in the hands of the enemy, and must endure many an ignominy and merciless treatment. Have compassion on the poor, the widows, the aged and stricken in years, the children and infants which cannot flee. Make a speedy end of this wasteful war and hear our prayer of the sake of Thy goodness and mercy.” Amen. (Starck’s Prayer Book, 493).