Day 875
Telling the dogs apart
The main point-of-view characters in our bloody tragedy are the heroes, as opposed to the antagonists, who seek the illusion of peace. This has something to do with the above photo (but don’t read too much into it, because we’re not thinking about Ukrainian beatnik artists during the 1990s).
Let’s start with the protagonists, c/o Ariana:
We need to paint an honest picture about reality.
On the current trajectory, the Western vision for Ukraine's "victory" will at best lead to a nation plagued by debt, with a totally decimated economy, with no infrastructure, no hospitals or schools. No health or education.
There will be no children and no youth to speak of. It will be a nation of elderly with no one to care for them. A nation of amputees, with adults and children having suffered traumatic injuries from the front lines or missiles on their beds.
Families will be broken by death, by trauma, by distance, by separation. The emotional scars will run deep from one generation to the next. It will be a nation of angry people, betrayed by the very nations who were supposed to help them.
In the end, a whole, free, sovereign, independent Ukraine and Ukrainians will be effectively sacrificed by the West to Russia for the illusion of peace. The west will have sacrificed a nation of 45 mln for nothing. RU will not be deterred by victory over UA, but emboldened.
Assuming Russia does not strike with attack against the West soon, it will most certainly not change course if it is not fully, resoundingly defeated militarily and politically, with its ability to wage war against anyone totally destroyed.
Ukraine will have been sacrificed, and the West will NOT have its 'peace'. It will have hell and chaos. It will have sacrificed a nation of 45 million people, shattering international law, human rights, and morality. And for what? Not security.
Ukrainians may have shown remarkable, super-human resolve, resilience, bravery, courage, conviction, strength, and more over the last 10.5 years, especially over the last 2.5 years. But Ukrainians are NOT super-human, but simply human like every other human.
Ukrainians, as human beings, can only tolerate so much hell, so much suffering, so much war, so much death, destruction, loss, sacrifice, and so much abandonment from friends. Ukrainians can only tolerate being our shield for so long.
While not yet ready to give in, the hell of war (especially in the modern era) will erode at the ability to be endlessly resilient & awe-inspiring. A nation of traumatized people where children don't have access to education & health care is not sustainable. RU counts on this.Ukrainians cannot live for years & years & years without heat in the winter, and without energy to even power a fan in heat waves of 40 degree C temperates in the summer. They cannot live without hospitals. Without mothers or fathers. With mined & polluted soil, water, & air.
Our definition of "victory" for Ukraine cannot be one where the future is so bleak. It cannot be one where some of Russia's goals of depopulation and genocide are so horrifically realized.
If we care at all about international law, morality, security, stability, order, freedom, human rights, and our national interests - including national security - we will stop tolerating a western vision for Ukraine that sees its destruction in its "victory".
This is what Vovchansk in northern Kharkiv region looks like after Russia attempted to capture the town of 13,000 in May. Not much left.
Supercut to James David, def not a beatnik, who ‘really doesn’t care, one way or the other’ about Ukraine. The junior US Senator is an antagonist in our drama. Judging by his resume, he is an accomplished shapeshifter (cf. ideologically flexible).
I listened through most of his rants “articulating the isolationist wing skepticism of US involvment in the Russia-Ukraine war.”
You should, too.
James David obvi has little experience or knowledge about Russia or Ukraine and the war or the history of this part of the planet. The illusion of peace he thinks Trump might (or might not) help negotiate with Putin to halt Russia’s genocidal campaign is just that, as Ariana points out.
Many of us opposed the 2003 invasion of Iraq before it started. Too bad James David did not, joined the US Marines and figured it out the hard way. Extrapolating his disappointment with US foreign policy screw-ups under George W to Uncle’s Joe’s response 20 years later to a 10-year genocidal campaign against Ukraine is, er, silly.
To compare or conflate the two bloody messes is whataboutism1.
The heat wave is expected to abate starting Thursday.
And, finally, this:
Brownshirt billionaire backers of James David — Elon Musk, Donald Trump Jr, Peter Thiel, David Sachs, Vivek Ramaswamy et al — since 2022 — have all used Russia’s talking points about our little war, calling on Ukraine to surrender land and save the “flower of its youth.” Their proposals to end the bloodshed on Putin’s terms bolsters their agency, politically and financially, not ours. If they are familiar with the lessons of appeasement we learned last century, they are not talking about them, at least not publicly.
I totally agree with you! Again thanks for your clarity.
Thank you for your writing-I am saddened to hear that you are correct in your assessment-we need to destroy Russia in order to help Ukraine - but alas Biden did the same thing as Obama did in Syria with Assad…he did not attack early and as a result that war dragged on and on. US leadership is a misnomer-I am hoping that we can keep Biden or whoever is running in office to stave off complete democratic destruction. Pisses me off!!!!!