Evil, when it knocks on the door, when it walks in the room, when it surrounds us and smiles at its likely victory, is one of the worst things in life. Still, we are seeing it in Russian President Vladimir Putin just as in Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and too many others. As the United States seems to know, the only answers are outrage, analysis, courage, strength and determination even as evil employs any means that suit its ends.
Evil reaches beyond immorality. It is anxious, brutal, endlessly inhumane, without conscience, delivering as much pain as it takes to satisfy the never satisfied. In Ukraine, Putin is threatening not just democracy, sovereignty, national pride and world order, but attacking maternity wards, schools, crowds in the street and shelters for the homeless.
Let’s get personal for a minute and contemplate a news report about a mass grave containing the bodies of a toddler with shrapnel in her head, a teenage girl missing legs blasted from her body as she played soccer and another slaughtered girl not yet six and wearing pajamas decorated with cartoonish drawings of unicorns
