Palmyra
Dear World,
Yes, the Czar is sorry to hear that the beautiful ruins of Palmyra have been destroyed by ISIS.
Forgive the Czar if he’s not jaw-droppingly stunned like so many of you seemed to be. That’s what ISIS does: it destroys everything it contacts.
Rather, the Czar is utterly affected by other things ISIS is doing: murdering parents in front of their young families, raping women and girls, burning children alive and crucifying them. Lopping heads off Christians, starving Yazidis on cliffs, and using horrific biochemical weapons on Kurds.
The Czar would happily let them demolish a dozen Palmyras to get just one of those lives back.
So if you want to be outraged because ISIS destroyed a beautiful piece of architecture, have at at. But be outraged at everything else, too, and push to do something about it. Because we can always rebuild a ruin and say “this is what it looked like,” but we can’t undo the murder of thousands.
Someday history will look back on ISIS and wonder why the world didn’t do anything about it sooner. And we better have a better answer than crying about some pillars in the sand.
Божію Поспѣшествующею Милостію Мы, Дима Грозный Императоръ и Самодержецъ Всероссiйскiй, цѣсарь Московскiй. The Czar was born in the steppes of Russia in 1267, and was cheated out of total control of all Russia upon the death of Boris Mikhailovich, who replaced Alexander Yaroslav Nevsky in 1263. However, in 1283, our Czar was passed over due to a clerical error and the rule of all Russia went to his second cousin Daniil (Даниил Александрович), whom Czar still resents. As a half-hearted apology, the Czar was awarded control over Muscovy, inconveniently located 5,000 miles away just outside Chicago. He now spends his time seething about this and writing about other stuff that bothers him.