Suffer The Little Children

Books By Patti Liszkay
​Available On Amazon

​​"Equal and Opposite Reactions" http://amzn.to/2xvcgRa
and the sequel, "Hail Mary" https://www.amzn.com/1684334888
​Available on Amazon.

​SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

      For weeks now I, like much of the rest of the world, have been following the grim news reports of Russian troops amassing at the Ukrainian border in what is being interpreted as preparation for a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. 

​    And while the Western allies have been moving in and out of negotiations with Russia in an attempt to stop what could potentially descend into World War III,  I imagine I'm not the only person who's been listening to the experts, analysts and commentators and trying to make sense of it all: Why exactly would Russian President Vladimir Putin start a war with Ukraine? If Russia invades Ukraine, what will Europe do? What will the United States do? Are we, along with Ukraine, also on the verge of a war with Russia? Whether we are or we aren't, how will this war affect us? What will it mean to us here in the United States and to the rest of the world?
      In short, what is what's going on in a part of the world 5,687 miles away from me all about? 
    The answer finally came to me last night while I was listening to NPR and the news broke that troops in the Russian-backed separatist area between eastern Ukraine and Russia,  

... fired artillery shells on the small Ukrainian border village of Stanytsia Luhanska.
​      The shells hit the town's kindergarten. The Fairytale Kindergarten, it's called.
   A reporter spoke to one of the teachers who described how they led the children into a hallway were there were no windows. The teacher said that the children were crying and had to be brought home to their parents.
        That image of those little children, terrified and crying for their parents hit me with a pang to my heart. I had a vision of my own children at that age, frightened and crying for me. 
​​      I went online and saw the photos of what they did to the Fairytale Kindergarten.

    And then I knew what this war, that started yesterday with the destruction of the Fairytale Kindergarten, really meant.
    Whatever its cause, whatever its effects, whatever its outcome, Vladimir Putin's war against Ukraine means the same thing that every war from the beginning of time has meant: Suffering children. Suffering mothers. Suffering fathers. Suffering people, young and old.
      Shame on Vladimir Putin. Shame on all the bringers of war. Shame on all those who, in their greed and their hatefulness and their cruelty and their lust for power have caused the suffering of children. God's shame on them all.