The God of Chaos Unleashed

As I write this reports are flooding in tonight that there are mass atrocities happening in Aleppo carried out by soldiers of Assad against his own civilians with a lead role for the troops of Putin. While we sit idle barely taking the energy to even bear witness to this horror I want to point to a quote from an article on Alexander Gudin that was published in the National Review some two years ago. In this article we begin to understand just how predictable this moment of death and chaos is for anyone who would simply take Putin's Euroasian Christianism seriously. (see below).

I need to say that I am disappointed in President Obama's lack of resolve against Assad and Putin. In Obama's favor it is fair to say his rejoinder is correct - we simply did not have the resolve as a people after Iraq to go to war again - neither in blood or treasure. I am guilty here, too. Perhaps if Obama had led we would have followed. Perhaps we would have been bogged down in a quagmire not unlike Iraq or Viet Nam. Perhaps we would have triggered a cataclysm. I have no more to add to the overarching argument. The past is worth arguing, and others who understand the situation will have better things to say than I do.

However, while I am disappointed in Obama's lack of resolve I am also near despair knowing that as a nation we are in the process of placing Vladimir Putin's governing philosophy very near to the center of our own governance. While Obama lacked resolve, Trump applauds, supports, and defends Putin and Assad. This is the 'strength' Trump believes we too must show. Even at this very moment Trump is gathering a significant number of my fellow citizens, people I've gone to church with, perhaps people in my own extended family, who are actively defending and supporting Putin, leader of this chaos.

As the reports flow in of the 100's - 1,000's of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters - unarmed and helpless - burned alive, bombed, gassed, torn apart; as the reports come in of the remaining staff of the last hospital summarily executed; remember, this is not ISIS or Al Qaeda, this is now on the cusp of being us. You and me. Perhaps not willingly. But as we accept our new governance, it is us all the same. There may still be time to stop our drift from wrestling with the charge of being feckless in the face of evil to that of becoming complicit partners in genocide. We will see how things play out in the coming days and weeks. But already the tide has changed. The gods of chaos are unleashed. The logos that became flesh and dwelt among us is trampled underfoot and crucified once again. And we beheld it. And for so many of us, we welcomed it with wide embrace.