Joseph Sabino Mistick: Putin reminds us of how we fight evil

It is a question as old as time, one for which there is no universally acceptable answer. Because of Vladimir Putin and his savage invasion of Ukraine, it is a question that is front and center again: How could there be such evil in this world?

“Evil” is the only word for what Putin is doing. Whole families — parents and grandparents and their children — are lying dead in the streets of Ukraine. Their lives and their way of life have been destroyed. And there are more than 4 million refugees running for their lives.

According to The New York Times, Russian missile attacks and bombings have destroyed “at least 23 hospitals and other health care infrastructure, 330 schools, 27 cultural buildings, 98 commercial buildings, including at least 11 related to food or agriculture, and 900 houses and apartment buildings.”

In Mariupol, Russian forces issued an ultimatum, demanding surrender of the Sea of Azov port city to stop their medieval siege and devastating attacks. As elsewhere in the country, Ukrainians there have chosen to fight.

For us, every time that we think that the barbarism of total war is behind us, it roars back. After more than 50 years of relative peace in Europe in the late 19th century and early 20th century, World War I exploded. That war, “the war to end wars,” was followed 25 years later by World War II.

It seems that evil never really goes away. It hides and awaits its chance, which it often gets because there are always madmen who will kill for more power.

Albert Speer, Hitler’s architect, was asked how it could be possible that he did not know the extent of Hitler’s evil. Speer, far more culpable than he ever admitted, said, “It is hard to know the devil when his hand is on your shoulder.” We should all remember that when we hear from those American politicians and media types who praise Putin.

Watching the savagery unfold in Ukraine, it is difficult to believe that we live in a morally ordered universe, and even those with the strongest faith may find their faith shaken. But in the end, the moral resolution of these latest horrors will be up to all of us, and we have a pretty good model to follow.

If you grew up in the years after World War II, you know justice. It would have been easier to move past the Holocaust at the end of the war, but America demanded public trials for accused Nazi war criminals to show the world the evidence of their crimes and render punishment.

In 1948, the United States created the Marshall Plan to restore the economic institutions of war-torn Europe. European countries became global trade partners, and stable democracies were established to replace autocratic dictatorships.

In 1949, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was formed. Twelve countries — the U.S., Canada, Britain, Iceland and eight European nations — agreed that “an armed attack against one of them” would be an attack against all of them. President Harry Truman said then, “We are also actively striving to promote and preserve peace throughout the world.” Now there are 30 countries in NATO.

That’s the way we fight evil. And if it seemed that we had lost our focus for a while, Putin has gotten the attention of America and the world, and we are back.