If Donald Rumsfeld could see “old Europe” now. Rumsfeld, you might recall, was one of George W. Bush’s goons of arrogance who orchestrated the Iraq war and mocked Europe for refusing to be complicit in what was then as much of an illegal invasion of Iraq as Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is today. The difference was the brown skin of the victims and the non-nuclear status of their leader, whose tyrannical repression wasn’t much different than a dozen repulsive Arab regimes the United States still calls “friends.”
Old Europe was right. The United States had to clear out of Iraq with its tail between its legs a decade and hundreds of thousand dead later, much like the Soviet Union and the United States had to clear out of Afghanistan after their criminal decades there. The difference this time is that Old Europe, led by France and Germany, has resolutely shocked Putin as much as Ukrainians have by standing up to him with every means at hand. It is Old Europe, not the United States, that’s leading this resistance.
For the first time since World War II, Germany is sending weapons to the east, raising its defense spending and abandoning its phobia of deficit spending in the face of the Russian threat. France and the rest of the European Union are doing no less, using the European Union budget for the first time to buy weapons. Even the usually pacific Scandinavian countries are sending arms, and Hungary, whose leader fancies himself a little Putin, is acting more European for a change.
This is all bracing stuff, as are the economic sanctions that have been punishing Putin, but also Europe. Already on the brink of recession before the invasion, here we have a continent willing to do what’s necessary in unity to oppose a Slavic Napoleon, including imposing measures that are hurting European consumers and damaging business. We’re complaining about $3 and $4 a gallon gas here. Prices in Europe are at $5 and $6, inflation is rising, an economic crash looms, and somehow they’re not blaming Joe Biden or their own leaders.
There are all sorts of condemnations of the Ukrainian invasion of course, if from the comfort of certain limits. Imbecilic talking heads calling for the bombing of convoys or no-fly zones aside, everyone east and west of the Ural mountains–that Russian Appalachia dividing Asia and Europe–knows that a military confrontation with Russia is not an option. We could follow bombast with bombs in all those Middle East and African countries because the enemy had no nuclear weapons. It makes pretending to be a superpower easier. Superpower status is nullified once the enemy has a nuclear arsenal, suicide not being an attractive choice.
Nukes are useful to the impudent invader, as they were to us in the Middle East. They act as a shield from retaliation by another nuclear power since any retaliation means mutually-assured destruction, that MAD acronym that used to be on all our lips in the 1980s. The alternatives aren’t a weakness. To the contrary. Diplomacy, sanctions, weapons and mercenaries can do wonders. It isn’t nukes or military might that defeated the United States in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, or the Soviet Union in Afghanistan. It’s guerillas and mercenaries. Putin the Terrible won’t be moved by diplomacy. In his search for his new Rossiad he will certainly finish off Ukraine. But then what? He’s already worse off today than he was two weeks ago. His Russia will be the next North Korea: an isolated, putrefying nation, now with the second-largest country in Europe (after Russia) to administer, and with 44 million angry Ukrainian (Orthodox) jihadists to deal with.
Thankfully the early cheers for Putin among the likes of Donald Trump, Tucker Carlson and other right-wing turncoats have died down a bit even though more Republicans approve of Putin than do Biden. It reminds me of reading about a poll the Princeton University newspaper conducted in November 1939, two months after Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Freshmen were asked to name the greatest living person. Hitler beat out Einstein with almost four times more votes. Franklin Roosevelt and Mahatma Gandhi were even further down the list. The descendants of those Princeton students must be propagating among Trump’s Republican Party.
Every war brings out the best and the worst in human beings. Ukrainian resistance has been heroic and inspiring as Russia carries out its war crimes. But there’s also a strong element of bias at work in the public reaction. You know, the way a blue-eyed blond child gone missing will get page one sympathy while a missing Black child will be ignored.
In this case it’s a different level of chauvinism, astutely pointed out by Jon Stewart in an interview on Wednesday, “because, quite frankly,” he said, “Saudi Arabia is still bombing the shit out of Yemen [with American weapons]. We bombed the shit out of Iraq. Like, I’m not saying it’s an analogous situation. But those human beings on the other end of those armaments are as human being-y as the ones in Ukraine that, you know, everybody’s got their flags up, and right now, around the world, there are communities in terrible suffering from Yemen, to Palestinians to all around the world.”
So if it’s invading sovereign countries and mass-killing civilians we’re so concerned about, let’s not so easily put aside the two decades of American invasions, incursions and violations of about a dozen Middle Eastern countries’ sovereignties in the last three decades, with full-fledged invasions and massive bombings of Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Syria, Sudan, and, with continuing help from our friends the Saudis, Yemen. In Iraq alone, Brown University research finds, “we know that between 184,382 and 207,156 civilians have died from direct war related violence caused by the U.S., its allies, the Iraqi military and police, and opposition forces from the time of the invasion through October 2019.”
As a famed septuagenarian once said, we forget too much, too fast. It’s only a few weeks ago that we ended our nation’s longest war with that retreat from Afghanistan. The problem there wasn’t a week’s chaotic retreat, as the Fox fanatics would have you believe, but 20 years of imperial arrogance and mass killings that had no other way to end but in chaos. (The civilian toll for Afghanistan since the American invasion: 71,000 civilians, including a 330 percent increase in the killing of civilians when Trump took over). Over the past two decades in the Middle East American intervention caused the displacement of millions and the ruin of several countries, not least our own, considering the trillions we wasted in a losing gambit in the name of democracy. There’s a reason Europe alone has the moral high ground against Russia in this war: American credibility in defense of sovereignty or civilian casualties is in the toilet.
That’s not to diminish the atrocity of Vladimir Putin’s invasion or his fabricated claims about Ukraine being a Russian protectorate in need of “denazification.” But if you think there’s that much daylight between Putin’s type of fabrications to invade a neighbor and the fabrications justifying military follies by every American president from Reagan to Biden–Biden who only a few weeks ago abandoned a career of enthusiastic warmongering– you’re living in a fantasy world.
Ukrainians deserve every ounce of sympathy, every weapon and any other kind of non-military support. But when was the last time you heard of any sympathy for Palestinians, for Yemenis, for Iraqis, Afghans and East African civilians who die by the hundreds every week in ongoing wars? As always, darker lives don’t matter.
Pierre Tristam is FlaglerLive’s editor. Reach him by email here. A version of this piece aired on WNZF.
Mark says
Quit thinking in racist terms. We did not go into Iraq because of their “brown skin”. You obviously have never been on a battlefield. Our troops cared more for Iraqui’s, especially their children, than many of their parents did. American troops are way more apt to mistreat the seemingly bad actors. During battle it may often become confused as to who are the actual bad actors. Are their American bad actors, certainly. It’s a huge organization. You, sir need to spend some time actually getting to know the troops and their leaders instead of depending on info from people who have an uneducated agenda.
Ben Hogarth says
In Vietnam, the U.S. sustained more than 55,000 casualties. Of these, ~10,000 were reported to be “friendly-fire incidents.” OF those incidents, 80% were determined to be “non-accidental.” The United States hardly has a track record of purity and the use of mercenary killers against Iraqi civilian populations (Blackwater) is more than just a footnote in history as well. It’s true that we are usually better than the “alternative” – but since when does that give us vindication with everything we do? Since when is our moral compass solely guided by its comparative relevance to those of other nations? Much of the animosity I have seen lately against the Chinese for “unleashing Covid-19 on the world” – I have yet to see such vigor from the right-wing on Russia for unleashing destruction and terror on Ukraine and threatening the entire “West” with nuclear obliteration. So I suppose the right-wings acceptance of the Chinese as our “enemies” but not Russia is just circumstantial and has nothing to do with the fact Russia is a fascist, evangelical (conservative) state? One in four Americans identify as “Christian evangelical” and guess who was once headlined on their national magazine? That’s right – Mr. Putin!
As Chris Rock says, it’s all “right” cause it’s all “white.”
And I’m one of many Americans long tired of the racism and race debates. But I can’t deny the obvious realities that 1/4 Americans identify with very sick and sadistic belief structures. That’s not to say all evangelicals are “bad” – but you have to wonder how you can reconcile with anyone who places their beliefs before all other goodness of mankind.
Jimbo99 says
“As always, darker lives don’t matter.”
How did I know this article would come full circle back to that message ? Need to piggy back LGBTQ on it too. Did I miss a special interest group ? Article started out with the white on white holocaust of Ukraine-Russia.
Dennis C Rathsam says
To all my friends, make peace with your neighbors, call your relatives, brothers & sisters….everone you love. Tell them you,ll see them on the other side ( if they make it
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Call your kids, hug them goodbye. Maybe you,ll see them on the other side… (if the make it) The world as we know it will be gone forever. When the bombs start, pray to god, the swift nuclear bomb will fry us all like chicken. No where to run ….No where to hide. Thanks to Joe Biden, the man that fundes the Russian invation, of Ukraine. Millions of people died millions more to come…. Keep buying Russian Oil…..The Green Deal Jackasses have ruined the US. Now on the cusp of annielation, by a mad made in Moscow….Biden fiddles as the world in Europe is on fire. Whos next Joe, or did U forget? To all in Palm Coast… The end is near, it was a great ride, it may not be tomorrow or the day after, but its coming God Bless you all… You should have voted for TRUMP!
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Do Your Homework says
Only 7% of US oil imports come from Russia. The majority (roughly 2/3 according to Forbes Magazine and other sources) is from Canada and Mexico with a few others tossed in.
As for Biden “fundes” [sic] the Russian invasion … what planet are you on? The previous POTUS had his head so far up Putin’s colon that he could see his tonsils. Then he makes the statement that Putin is a genius and brilliant for invading a sovereign country? Turn off FOX (or most of them for that matter) and READ sources like BBC, Reuters, the AP and other world news organizations who actually report the facts without all the editorial commentary and Monday Morning Quarterback analysis. Trump is the one who cozied up to Putin, and North Korea, not Biden. P.S. I am not a democrat, just a realist who does my homework and cannot sit and read foolishness that isn’t remotely factual or accurate. I’m far less than happy with Biden’s term so far, but let’s at least keep to the facts.
JLS says
A couple of days into this invasion I posted this concept in question form on my personal FB page Those who commented gave other reasons for the support, and some seemed to take offense at even the question. I removed the post a few hours later thinking evidently I was in left-field. Then I realized that’s exactly where I am. LOL
Land of no turn signals says says
Funny get the same alerts on my phone for a white kid blue eyed as a black child or hispanic.Why does the white child have to have blue eyes why not green or brown?Keep digging with this ridiculous article you will eventually get somebody wound up and stomp there feet.
Buck says
Awfully woke. This is your takeaway from the atrocities happening in Ukraine? Yeah it’s pretty bad but America has done equally bad stuff and nobody cares because they ain’t white? Astounding observation, tremendously insightful and useful to boot!
JeanP says
The issue is the tragedy of being unable to prevent the genocide in Ukraine because a feckless leader like Biden, and like Obama before him, was more focused on culture wars than real wars. Putin acted because he saw weakness, and knew that Biden America would not lead. Thank God the Europeans are finally realizing this and are acting in their own. Don’t make everything about race, we have enough of that here at home, but I guess that’s your thing.
Ben Hogarth says
Well isn’t this a desperate grasping at straws. It’s really laughable that extreme right-wing folks can claim righteous providence when their “dear leader” (Trump) was actually trying to have the United States leave NATO and support Russia in Ukraine. Europeans “acting on their own” because they have an organization called the European Union – and they’ve done nothing so far to actually protect Ukraine anymore than any other ally of Ukraine in the West. The entire pretense of your statements is fallacy and your argument about Obama and Biden is amnesic of all the foreign policy victories and strength they showed for years. Putin moved on Russia when he did because he is at the end of his life cycle. He is a desperate and dangerous man who puts himself ahead of the entire world – kind of like Trump.
And like birds of a feather – they’ll be taken down together.
JLS says
I understood the point of article to be not why did the invasion occur… But, rather, it appears that we care about it more than we have cared about other atrocities that were in dark skinned countries.
Alonzo says
I guess it was o.k. fir Trump to hold back all the aid money Ukraine was suppose to get. Just saying. I will admit Biden can do better, but Trump did worse.
Fredrick says
Well Pierre we agree on something. Good Article… Well almost….
“cheers for Putin among the likes of Donald Trump”… he did no such thing. Listen to the ENTIRE thing that was said… don’t read it but listen. I am sure you have but you can’t help yourself when it comes to Trump. It’s funny how he is not the President and the left is still infatuated with him. If you stopped reporting on him maybe he would go away.
We were right to go into Afghanistan…. but we lost our focus and tried to nation build. That was our mistake. Bidens exit was a fiasco. There is not arguing that. You can even listen to some of Biden’s speeches long ago (before he was senile, he was stupid but not senile) about how we should leave, not leaving all our weapons… blah blah blah… He even new what to do back then.
Stop wrapping your arms around this disastrous administration.
And don’t forget gas was going up before all of this (along with everything because of this run away inflation that this admin has caused). We were or for the most part a net exporter and energy independent, but this admin stopped that….
Mark says
Be nice if you could get your facts straight Frederick. The current Administration did not cause the current inflation. It was mostly caused by ordinary people like you and me around the World. Actually started seeing signs of it heading that way in 2020, oh remind me who was President at the time. As for being infatuated with the last “President” not a day goes by that I don’t see someone flying a flag or bumper sticker for him supporting a loser, Radical-Right Snowflakes.
Ken Carter says
You never miss a chance to bring race into a discussion.
Bill C says
The reason for the Iraq war was to protect American oil interests in Kuwait, forget about reimagining that blunder as a humanitarian mission. (Bin Laden was holed up in Afghanistan). We were there to “shock and awe” Iraq into submission. As for the children, probably their parents were so impoverished they couldn’t care for them, or maybe they were dead. Since you were there you must have seen the tremendous gap between the few elite rich and the poor.
Bartholomew says
It was more kind of shock and awwwwwww
Sherry says
Each of us can do something to support the Ukrainian people who are being Murdered by Putin . . .
BOYCOTT those companies who have clearly put “profits above people”! Here is the beginning of a list. . . let’s add more:
1. COKE
2. PEPSI
3. McDonald’s
4. Shell Oil
5. Starbucks
6. Of course Russian Vodka
NY Comptroller also asked other American companies to suspend doing business with Russia:
Other companies, including Estee Lauder, Kimberly-Clark Corp, Coty Inc, Mondelez International Inc, Fortinet Inc, Bunge Ltd, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals Inc, and Trimble Inc, were also asked in the letter to boycott business in Russia, per Reuters.
Sherry says
@ Ben Hogarth. . . Right On, as usual!
Putin, living in his own isolated alternative reality, made critical miscalculations. He mistakenly thought his massive internet “propaganda” campaign was enough to get trump re-elected. With trump in office, and trump completely dis-assembling NATO, Putin thought he could then easily “annex” Ukraine, and the other Baltic countries, to regain the territories and glories of the Soviet Union. How astounded Putin must have been when his lackey, trump, was put out of office in a “proven to be accurate” election.
Putin’s second critical error was underestimating President Biden’s powerful effort and ability to rebuild and strengthen the might and unity of the NATO alliance of democratic countries in Europe. Leaders of most democratic nations realize this is the time to stand up for freedom and democracy! This “coming together” of democratic countries, all over the globe, in a powerful rebuke of Putin’s WAR on Ukraine and “Crimes Against Humanity” is precisely the opposite of what Putin was hoping to achieve.
Putin’s place in history will be along side Hitler’s, regardless of how this war turns out. Now that the Ukrainian people have lived with the freedoms and rights of a democracy, they will NOT return to being under the thumb of a Communistic Dictatorship!
SUPPORT THE PEOPLE OF UKRAINE! %^&* PUTIN!
DaleL says
There is this all too common tendency to assign group blame to individuals. The concept of collective guilt or guilt by association is just plain wrong. In the United States we do not punish the family of a murderer. We punish the murderer. This is in contrast with many cultures and religions in which the sins of the parents are passed on to the children. (Aka, original sin.)
The fact is that Ukrainians are more deserving of support on many levels. As a former actor and comedian, Zelenskyy has media savvy and is by all accounts a decent human being. (Contrast that with Putin.) He was elected fairly and by a huge 72% of the vote. Ukraine is or at least was before Putin’s invasion a functioning democracy. In 1991, Ukrainians voted by 92% to leave the Soviet Union. In 1994, Ukraine gave up its Soviet era nuclear weapons. In return, the USA, Britain, and RUSSIA agreed to respect the sovereignty and borders of Ukraine. (Budapest Memorandum)
Finally, please quit calling Putin a “president”. At one time he was elected as the president of the Russian Federation, but those days are long gone. Now he has poisoned or jailed his opposition. Call him what he is; he is a murderer. He is a dictator; he is a criminal.
Kurt T Hill says
This war is taking place in Europe, not in the periphery. Russia will be bled, and bled, and bled yet again. Just short of nuclear war. That seems to be the Western game plan. Most military analysts I read before the invasion predicted Ukraine would cease to offer organized military resistance no more than 10 days after the first shot was fired. To date, the Russians can’t even gain air superiority over most of the combat areas. Their invasion column is bogged down in the north. Thousands of body-bags are being sent home. Thousands of Russian young people are defying authorities and demanding “Out Now!” Ukraine will refuse Russian demands and more and more Russians will die. As civilian casualties mount in Ukraine, irregular forces within Russia proper (“terrorists”) will begin to operate as well.
Sherry says
Just a reminder for the mindless trump/FOX “Cult” living in their alternate reality. . . trump was IMPEACHED the first of “TWO” times because he illegally held back almost 400 MILLION in military aid to Ukraine:
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/01/16/trump-administration-broke-law-in-withholding-ukraine-aid.html
Sherry says
We must never forget that trump held back those hundreds of millions in military aid as a “BRIBE” to try and get Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy to dig up dirt on Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden/his son Hunter. It was all laid out in a phone call with Zelenskyy:
trump: I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it. I would like you to find out what happened with this whole situation with Ukraine, they say Crowdstrike… I guess you have one of your wealthy people… The server, they say Ukraine has it. There are a lot of things that went on, the whole situation. I think you’re surrounding yourself with some of the same people. I would like to have the Attorney General call you or your people and I would like you to get to the bottom of it. As you saw yesterday, that whole nonsense ended with a very poor performance by a man named Robert Mueller, an incompetent performance, but they say a lot of it started with Ukraine. Whatever you can do, it’s very important that you do it if that’s possible.
President Zelenskyy: Yes it is very important for me and everything that you just mentioned earlier. For me as a President, it is very important and we are open for any future cooperation. We are ready to open a new page on cooperation in relations between the United States and Ukraine. For that purpose, I just recalled our ambassador from United States and he will be replaced by a very competent and very experienced ambassador who will work hard on making sure that our two nations are getting closer. I would also like and hope to see him having your trust and your confidence and have personal relations with you so we can cooperate even more so. I will personally tell you that one of my assistants spoke with Mr. Giuliani just recently and we are hoping very much that Mr. Giuliani will be able to travel to Ukraine and we will meet once he comes to Ukraine. I just wanted to assure you once again that you have nobody but friends around us. I will make sure that I surround myself with the best and most experienced people. I also wanted to tell you that we are friends. We are great friends and you Mr. President have friends in our country so we can continue our strategic partnership. I also plan to surround myself with great people and in addition to that investigation, I guarantee as the President of Ukraine that all the investigations will be done openly and candidly.. That I can assure you.
trump: Good because I heard you had a prosecutor who was very good and he was shut down and that’s really unfair. A lot of people are talking about that, the way they shut your very good prosecutor down and you had some very bad people involved. Mr. Giuliani is a highly respected man. He was the mayor of New York City, a great mayor, and I would like him to call you. I will ask him to call you along with the Attorney General. Rudy very much knows what’s happening and he is a very capable guy. If you could speak to him that would be great. The former ambassador from the United States, the woman, was bad news and the people she was dealing with in the Ukraine were bad news so I just want to let you know that. The other thing, There’s a lot of talk about Biden’s son, that Biden stopped the prosecution and a lot of people want to find out about that so whatever you can do with the Attorney General would be great. Biden went around bragging that he stopped the prosecution so if you can look into it… It sounds horrible to me.