2 Comments
User's avatar
Jeffrey Spitz Cohan's avatar

To conflate the Vietnam or Iraq disasters with our support for Ukraine is a disservice to the truth, as are most analogies. No one, at least within my earshot, is claiming Zelensky is Thomas Jefferson. But he has been thrust to the front lines of Putin's war against the international order, which recognizes national borders as inviolate as a necessary precondition for peace. The Ukrainians are suffering terribly while they carry the water of Europe and the United States. The least we can do is support their heroism to our utmost ability.

Expand full comment
bill steigerwald's avatar

The war in Ukraine, thank God, and obviously, is not as disastrous for us 'mericans as Nam and Iraq. It's just that the same kind of bipartisan asshole war-loving neocons-- the McCains, the Cheneys, the Bushes, the Obamas, et al. -- were the ones who got us mired in them with their usual lies and BS. The proxy war in Ukraine that we fomented and funded has destroyed huge swaths of the country and killed x-hundred thousand people. Yes, Russia/Putin the Thug pulled all the triggers that killed them. But the war -- and its death and destruction -- is the very much predicted end result of the open screwing around the Obama state department did in 2014 to subvert Ukraine's government. It's also a predictable result of what a bipartisan collection of Nato-expanding US and Euro warhawks and neocons have been pushing for since 1990. The record of our intervention and subversion is clear and all over the internet: There's redundant proof of what evil meddling we were doing in Ukraine to install a government we could control. There's proof of what our state department people, our CIA, our USAID fronts, plus warhawks like McCain and Democrat senators like Murphy, were doing. There's proof them boasting that they had inserted 'our' people into all kinds of civil and political institutions in Ukraine. There's also piles of proof showing wise and realistic foreign policy people like George Kennan and Sen. Bill Bradley and defense department heads like Gates (not Bill) warned and re-warned that we were dangerously poking a bear by pushing Nato farther and farther east. You may not have heard David Brooks stupidly say in his emotional paean to Zelensky's heroic character on PBS that he was defending "western values," but he said it. Many other people in the media are repeating the same BS, acting like Z is not the thug, petty dictator, crook,money launderer and horrible comedia that he is. Zelensky is done for. He'll be deposed on shot soon. He blew it when he tried to outfox Trump -- as the 'O fuck' reaction of the Ukrainian ambassador showed at the time. The Ukrainians have become tragic victims and Putin is a real dictator. But the Ukrainians have been victims of a series of cynical US power plays in what is now Russian's side yard that are aimed at getting Putin out of power and turning Russia into Belgium. The poor Ukrainians are the suckers who have been dying and fleeing and having their homes blown up because their country has been seduced/duped into fighting a war for ends that we wanted -- and they never had a chance to win and still don't even more. Other than those few points, I think we agree on most everything.

Expand full comment