The war in Ukraine is a humanitarian disaster and Russian President Vladimir Putin is to blame. He has committed war crimes. But the answer is not to prolong this struggle by dispensing just enough aid to Ukraine to keep the war and killing progressing while both countries bleed themselves white. The solution is not to isolate Russia in a second Cold War. We need to help negotiate an end to this war.
But we’re not hearing that from much of Washington. Have they all gone mad? The Republican leadership seems intent upon escalating the war in Ukraine into a Third World War. So do most of the journalists covering the story – from all the networks. After Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared before Congress via Zoom on Wednesday it only seemed to exacerbate the war fever as the GOP egged on their Democrat counterparts to edge closer to a nuclear confrontation with Russia. Later in the day, Zelensky suggested in an NBC interview that World War III may have already started.
Zelensky casts his spell on political audiences around the world and receives a standing ovation from lawmakers everywhere. His appeal is lost on me just as why American congressmen and senators are so obsessed with what is happening in Ukraine that they are willing to risk war to secure its borders. Republicans were falling over themselves, desperately trying to ship those MiG fighter jets to Poland, wondering what other wonder weapons could be shipped overseas and finally imagining that Ukraine itself could “close the sky” without the assistance of NATO.
This level of anti-Russian hysteria did not exist through the years of the Cold War when Russia was a communist country and often a direct threat to the United States. America was never this close to a nuclear war when President Ronald Reagan faced the communist threat because he understood the rules of engagement and didn’t listen to bellicose generals who suggested he push the envelope with the Soviets to see just how far he could go. But ultimately he was the most successful negotiator with the Soviet Union and he ended the Cold War.
Russia is not threatening the United States today and yet Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) has doubled down on his suggestion that Vladimir Putin be assassinated. By whom? It doesn’t matter. Graham wants to send just about anything to the Ukrainians and the consequences be damned. If this is all about trying to making Biden look weak – give it up. He already looks weak; you’re making him look more astute by the day the more you demand a bigger and better war.
If the Republican leadership sounds like they’ve lost their sense of reality, some of the lesser-known GOP representatives are going even further. Last week, Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-FL) said she supported a no-fly zone, although she admitted she didn’t “know what it will mean” for the war but, after all, “freedom isn’t free.” World war isn’t free either. Just check out the price tag from the last one and that only involved two nuclear bombs.
Much of the media is parroting this war mongering. Demanding that the Biden administration establish a no-fly zone is as simple as ordering a buffet breakfast for a West Wing reception. Reporters continue to badger President Joe Biden and White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki about the no-fly zone, apparently either oblivious or uncaring that it will inevitably lead to a shooting war with Russia, which could lead to a limited nuclear exchange, which would probably result in the use of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles. Then all those journalists sitting in their lush New York and Washington offices wearing their designer suits and dresses will find out just how close a nuclear strike can come. Has Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove become such a relic of the past that these insulated scribes seem to think those were different nuclear weapons in the 1960s?
President Biden has presided over a chronic disaster since his inauguration as president and no doubt his foreign policy weakness – especially as demonstrated in the fiasco in Afghanistan – empowered Putin to invade Ukraine. But thankfully, Biden seems to remember the lessons of the Cold War and that nuclear weapons are for deterrence and not to be used. And he is not being goaded into crossing that line. When President Biden appears reasonable and Sen. Graham looks downright crazy, you know that all is not right with the world.
The uniformity of their reporting is astounding and frightening. Try to find evidence of the bio-labs in Ukraine and you will be directed to the World Socialist Web Site by Google as if only fringe news organizations reported this news.
On March 8, in response to a question from Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland admitted that the labs existed and that they were potentially highly dangerous.
“Uh, Ukraine has, uh, biological research facilities. We are now in fact quite concerned that Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to, uh, gain control of [those labs], so we are working with the Ukrainiahhhns [sic] on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach,” she told Rubio.
It’s like the exchange never happened because just try to find any discussion of it, besides accounts that the labs are a figment of Russian disinformation. After former congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard raised the alarm about pathogens from the label being released as a result of the war, she was attacked as a traitor.
RINO Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), who never missed an opportunity to smear former President Donald Trump, outrageously tweeted, “Tulsi Gabbard is parroting false Russian propaganda. Her treasonous lies may well cost lives.”
What was false, Mitt? And how dare you suggest a lieutenant-colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve uttered “treasonous lies” when she was trying to save lives. Was he objecting to Gabbard’s frequent criticism that the “military-industrial complex” benefits from foreign wars? Well, it was venerable GOP President and General of the Army Dwight Eisenhower who coined that phrase and warned Americans that incessant wars were good business for some companies but bad news for those compelled to fight them.
Romney is a political joke who is the Republican equivalent of President Joe Biden, mouthing any platitude or supporting any cause if he thinks it’s politically expedient but this attack against Gabbard is execrable and he should at least apologize.
Gabbard responded on Twitter:
“Americans and people around the world have just suffered through a global pandemic quite possibly caused by pathogens accidentally released from a biological lab. Yet my political opponents are not concerned…about 25+ biolabs in [the] Ukraine war zone, which could easily be breached, unleashing dangerous pathogens, igniting new worldwide pandemics. And, they label those of us who say we must take action to prevent a new pandemic as being treasonous.”
We need to end this war not continue it endlessly with the billion dollar aid packages that will keep it alive but end up destroying Ukraine and Russia. Of course this is an unjust war and of course Putin is the villain. But the West must think of the future and bring Russia into the democratic world by any diplomatic means possible. We keep hearing the retired generals on Fox News talk about being creative in finding new ways of funneling arms to Ukraine and prolonging the war. How about being creative in finding diplomatic solutions, the way that Attorney General Robert Kennedy established a back channel with the Russian ambassador during the Cuban Missile Crisis to find out what satisfy the Soviets. Turned out they wanted the U.S. to remove its missiles from Turkey. President John Kennedy agreed, and he could take them out quietly.
I remember spending Christmas 1996 in Bosnia where i was serving with NATO forces at a U.S. Army base. I was sitting with Green Berets on one side of the table and on the other side sat a group of Russian special forces. Both were sharing Christmas dinner, limited conversation and military comradery – the Cold War was over and two former foes who were once committed to killing each other could now relax and look forward to a peaceful future.
We must recapture that hope. If Putin must go to achieve it then so be it. But we cannot continue to sleepwalk towards an utterly redundant and disastrous nuclear confrontation.
