LETTER: Sometimes diplomacy is not enough

Bob McClellan thinks the answer in the Middle East and all world conflict is diplomacy. He includes the conflict in Ukraine as one to be settled by diplomacy.

Unfortunately, when dealing with animals who have no values or rules, diplomacy is not very helpful. Didn’t work in Nazi Germany (didn’t work well for Chamberlain), won’t work well with the Islamofascists who seem to enjoy cutting off people’s heads and raping innocents in the name of their faith, and won’t work well with Putin.

I want to make sure I have Bob’s philosophy correct. Let me give him another possible scenario. After decades of illegal immigration across our southern border, there is a large population of ethnic Mexicans in New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and California. Suppose Mexico invades those four states and claims to take back land that was once theirs over 150 years ago because now a large number of ethnic Mexicans live there (as Russia is claiming in the Ukraine).

Would Bob not fight to take back that territory, leave U.S. citizens under Mexican rule and defer to diplomacy, or would he hope that a stronger president than the current occupant of the White House would send troops to defend our sovereign territory? Just a thought, Bob. Sometimes talk is just that... talk! —P. David Myerowitz, Columbia Falls