Fighting a War When You Can't Admit You're Fighting a War...

Here's a hypothetical:

Say there was a country that objected to its children being "adopted out" of the culture, whose elders refused to see young people continually purchased and delivered to wealthier families awaiting an offspring of their own.

Say this country passed a law that no more foreign adoptions were permitted:  that children in need whose parents were thought permanently incapable of caring for them were put up for adoption to other familes, but only to those also living and residing in the same country, where the culture could be preserved, and the idea that children were chattel commodities was quashed by simply permitting no outsiders to pay and ferry them away from their native people and land and identity, "who they are" by birthright.

What if there were a way, legally, to get around that?  Take the pregnant mother, separate her from her mate/the one who impregnated her, her family and her home country and culture.  Take her to another land, with the child in her womb, where she could safely deliver and the birth result could be immediately turned over to prospective purchasing parents.

Legal?  Legal enough?

If the rule was no child born in the home country could be adopted out, BUT the child was born in another country that did not have the rule -- the young mother consented;  the young father was presumably uninvolved or consented as well;  the family of the mother, if a minor, also ok'ed the arrangement... then legally, it is a go, no?

What about ethically?

Do you think the rich adoptive parents "skirted" the law of the land by whisking a young mother from her family and culture and country and community, and delivering the child to an unknown, effectively severing his or her biological and cultural ties?

It's an interesting ethical question.  In America, the Supreme Court next term will review the Indian Child Welfare Act, which prioritizes adoptions by Native American parents or tribes.  And the Chief Justice himself has faced questions about the parentage and adoptions of his two children, Josie and Jack, born in Ireland 4 and 1/2 months apart, but adopted from Latin America because of legal complexities.

If the t's are crossed, and the i's dotted, and the families all consented and the children are in a better place...  I attended a Zoom conference this past weekend where Indigenous peoples were not predicting, but were mostly glum about their prospects in Brackeen v. Haaland.

Here's another scenario:

The Polish air force has planes that Ukrainian rebel fighters are capable of flying, an older model Soviet make.  The U.S. has been pushing Poland to provide Ukraine with the fighter jets.

Poland, wisely, does not want to actively get drawn into declaring war on Russia, who is attacking neighboring Ukraine.  So Poland pulls a fast one on the U.S., represented by a Mr. Blinken in these negotiations, a man whose presence does not inspire confidence in American negotiators.

Poland says, we will give YOU, U.S.A. and NATO, our old fighter jets.  And as you have promised America, your taxpayers will replenish our supplies -- and quickly, as there is a war on our border! -- with used but updated F16 war planes.

(The "used" request is significant, as it means our useless U.S. Congress -- who holds the Constitutional power of declaring war, as well as spending trillions annually however they see fit -- will not have to okay the deal, as if these were new F16's.  You see, production is backlogged until 2025, and Taiwan has first dibs according to Congress;  Taiwan, because they are in fear of being invaded and attacked by China, and Congress has formally promised them protection in the name of the arms sales...)

Compare this to the adoption scenario...

Legally, the distinction is important:

PO-land is not declaring war on Russia by stocking Ukraine with planes.

NATO is declaring war on Russia if the US accepts the planes at Ramstein in Germany, and NATO okays their use.

The tricky thing is, everybody knows already:  Poland, and Germany, the US and a good part of the free world, already IS at war with Russia via Ukraine.  Without our weapons, the threat of our troops going in, our advisors and air-defense capabilities, the rebs on the ground with their homemade bombs and comedian-turned-military-leader won't last long, even against rusty incompetence.

"Ukranians" by the millions are fleeing their homeland, likely content to be resettled into safer, freer Western economies where they hopefully can still maintain their ethnic identities, cultures and traditions, while assimilating into the everyday economies into which they and their children will be thrust.

Honestly, wouldn't it be better to be honest about what is happening, and why?

By being open and addressing the facts of what we are seeing, without averting our eyes or minding our own bidness, ethically we can ask if the end result is an adopted person helped, a country saved, a world war averted ... or a march toward a crippling conformity that ultimately harms innocent lives in the name of protection.

Cultural ties and traditions are strong, often stronger than the commercial corruption that so often ends in wars of destruction that cost millions, before the value of the life lost is even calculated in.