War

At a moment like this, it's not a crime to think the worst. What Vladimir Putin has in mind with respect to the Ukraine, no one knows, not anyone in Washington and, in all likelihood, very, very few in Moscow. The grievance that gives him cause is entirely in his soul--he wants a Russia in size and power approximating the Soviet Union of decades ago. 

The only way to get there is to kill people, to take back the Ukraine, whose men and women and children want no part of his Soviet leadership. And so we wait, as we've waited for the last month or so, for something to drop, as it has with his pseudo-invasion of what he seems to determine is rightfully his, those areas of the Ukraine that are "Russian-speaking." He doesn't need a lie; he simply makes them up as he goes, as he has and as he will. His troops, remember, are "peacemakers."

I ran across some war sketches of Harvey Dunn this morning, the handsome chap at the top of the page, the South Dakota illustrator/artist, specifically chosen by the War Department during World War I to bring a sketch book to France and show the war to America. He did, sketched out hundreds of quickly drawn images and determined that, when he'd return, he'd turn them into real portraits of the horror he saw in war.

That dream didn't work out. Many remained unfinished. The good news is that they exist and can be celebrated; the bad news is they're awful--because war is. Who would possibly want one of these hanging from the walls of your home--no one. But then, who wants war? Putin and a few sidekicks.

Here are some of Harvey Dunn's war sketches. Right now, it just seems right to drag them out for study because this is where Putin is bringing all of us right now.

These sketches and paintings are a century old, but that doesn't mean they don't speak to this dark moment.

This is war. And if Putin has his way, this is us, even if a shot is never sounded on these shores.