A Ukrainian Prayer by John Rutter with The Cambridge Singers

How can a composer respond to a global tragedy? The first thing I wanted to do was write some music that would respond in my own way. I hope the meaning of the text will resonate in people's hearts and reach out to the people of Ukraine in their hour of need. JR

A literal translation of the text is:

Lord, protect Ukraine. Give us strength, faith, and hope, our Father. Amen

The score is available for free by contacting the team (https://johnrutter.com/contact-us), and we suggest that you may like to make a donation to the Disaster Emergency Fund instead: https://www.dec.org.uk/appeal/ukraine...

For more information, visit John Rutter's website: https://johnrutter.com/news-features/...

Pat Buchanan: NATO-Russia Collision Ahead?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“U.S. Poised to Put Heavy Weaponry in East Europe: A Message to Russia,” ran the headline in The New York Times.

“In a significant move to deter possible Russian aggression in Europe, the Pentagon is poised to store battle tanks, infantry fighting vehicles and other heavy weapons for as many as 5,000 American troops in several Baltic and Eastern European countries,” said the Times. The sources cited were “American and allied officials.”

The Pentagon’s message received a reply June 16. Russian Gen. Yuri Yakubov called the U.S. move “the most aggressive step by the Pentagon and NATO since the Cold War.” When Moscow detects U.S. heavy weapons moving into the Baltic, said Yakubov, Russia will “bolster its forces and resources on the western strategic theater of operations.”

Pat Buchanan: Putin Paranoia

By Patrick J. Buchanan

Hopefully, the shaky truce between Vladimir Putin and Ukraine’s Petro Poroshenko, brokered in Minsk by Angela Merkel, will hold.

For nothing good, but much evil, could come of broadening and lengthening this war that has cost the lives of 5,400 Ukrainians.

The longer it goes on, the greater the casualties, the more land Ukraine will lose, and the greater the likelihood Kiev will end up an amputated and bankrupt republic, a dependency the size of France on the doorstep of Europe.

KAL 007 and MH17 … A Presidential Response

From The Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College

By Dr. Paul G. Kengor

Editor’s note: A longer version of this article first appeared at The American Spectator.

This generation has its KAL 007. The stunning downing of Malaysian flight 17 is strikingly similar to the shock of September 1, 1983, when the Russians downed a Korean passenger airliner, flight 007, which had left New York City for Seoul via Alaska. In both cases, the Russian government vehemently denied any involvement, disparaging anyone who dared to accuse it of prior knowledge.

Both planes were Asian with similar numbers of dead. KAL had 269 passengers; the Malaysian flight nearly 300. They were mostly Asian passengers but also Americans—61 Americans in KAL 007 and a much smaller (still unconfirmed) number in the Malaysian flight. In both cases, questions arise over why the planes were flying where they were flying. Exactly what happened with KAL still isn’t entirely clear, but it seems the computer on the plane’s guidance system was set incorrectly, allowing it to stray into Soviet airspace. Russian fighter planes stalked KAL 007 before blasting it out of the sky.

In 1983, Moscow initially denied the dirty deed, with Yuri Andropov, Vladimir Putin’s former boss at the KGB, insisting on his country’s innocence. The denials were shattered when the Reagan administration produced audio of the two Russian pilots communicating as they excitedly shot the plane. The audio was secured via the National Security Agency’s exceptional electronic surveillance technology.

But a major difference between September 1983 and July 2014 is the initial reaction of the two presidents.

Is Obama Wrong on Ukraine?

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“What Would America Fight For?”

That question shouts from the cover of this week’s Economist. It is, asserts the magazine, “the question haunting its allies.”

Patrick J. Buchanan: On Treating Putin as Pariah

By Patrick J. Buchanan

“Mr. Obama is focused on isolating President Vladimir V. Putin’s Russia by cutting off its economic and political ties to the outside world … and effectively making it a pariah state.”

So wrote Peter Baker in Sunday’s New York Times. Yet if history is any guide, this “pariah policy,” even if adopted, will not long endure.

Patrick J. Buchanan: What Would Reagan Do?

By Patrick J. Buchanan 

President Reagan was holding a meeting in the Cabinet Room on March 25, 1985, when Press Secretary Larry Speakes came over to me, as communications director, with a concern.

The White House was about to issue a statement on the killing of Major Arthur Nicholson, a U.S. army officer serving in East Germany. Maj. Nicholson had been shot in cold blood by a Russian soldier.

Speakes thought the president’s statement, “This violence was unjustified,” was weak. I agreed. We interrupted the president, who reread the statement, then said go ahead with it.

What lay behind this Reagan decision not to express his own and his nation’s disgust and anger at this atrocity?

Priest: Ukrainian Catholics Flee Crimea to Escape Threats of Arrest

Father Milchakovskyi said that he and his family and at least two-thirds of his parishioners have left for Ukrainian-controlled territory on the advice of Archbishop Shevchuk (pictured above) (CNS)

Members of the Ukrainian Catholic Church are fleeing Crimea to escape threats of arrest and property seizures, a priest has said.

“The situation remains very serious, and we don’t know what will happen — the new government here is portraying us all as nationalists and extremists,” said Father Mykhailo Milchakovskyi, a parish rector and military chaplain from Kerch, Crimea, who was speaking to the Catholic News Service just four days after Russia finalised the region’s annexation.

Read more at The Catholic Herald (UK) >>

Britain Calls for Russia to be Expelled from G8

Russian military personnel surround a Ukrainian military base in Perevalnoe in Crimea Photo: GETTY

The beauty of the Anglosphere, and the organic unity built on a common faith, language, law, culture and history, is that even when right reason and leadership are lacking among one of the "fraternal association" (the Golfer-In-Chief has played 163 rounds of golf), other national leaders will lead and defend the patrimony.  Today, the British Prime Minister has called for Russia to be permanently expelled from the G8 club of wealthy nations if it continues to meddle in Ukraine.

Head of Catholic Bishops Conference Issues Statement on Ukraine

WASHINGTON—Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued a statement on Ukraine, March 4, and cited concerns for “current tensions and troubling events which continue to unfold there.” His comments followed a call of Pope Francis that all “endeavor to overcome misunderstandings and build together the future of the nation.”

Archbishop Kurtz’s statement follows.

Statement on the Crisis in Ukraine
By Archbishop Joseph E. Kurtz of Louisville
President, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops
March 4, 2014

The bishops of the United States, together with tens of millions of U.S. Catholics of Eastern European descent, join Pope Francis in solidarity and prayers for the people of Ukraine for an end to the current tensions and troubling events which continue to unfold there. We are grateful for the call of Pope Francis, that all “endeavor to overcome misunderstandings and build together the future of the nation.”

The heroic witness of Ukrainian Greek and Latin Catholic leaders, who stand firm for human rights and democracy, gives us hope that peaceful means might prevail to help rebuild civil society.  

Over the centuries, Catholics in Ukraine have been severely persecuted, and Catholicism even outlawed. For this reason, we raise our voice in defense of religious liberty in Ukraine, a liberty further threatened by the invasive actions occurring in the country.  

Together with my brother bishops, I ask U.S. Catholic communities, gathering for the beginning of Lent on Wednesday, to pray for a peaceful resolution of this crisis, one that secures the just and fundamental human rights of a long-suffering, oppressed people.

Tune Out the War Party!

By Patrick J. Buchanan
With Vladimir Putin’s dispatch of Russian troops into Crimea, our war hawks are breathing fire. Russophobia is rampant and the op-ed pages are ablaze here.

Barack Obama should tune them out, and reflect on how Cold War presidents dealt with far graver clashes with Moscow.