How often have we seen our foreign policies, particularly pro-war policies, ended up with blowback? Afghanistan and Iraq are the more obvious examples. Ukraine will be the next.
I realized the other day, while watching our media's coverage of the war in Ukraine, that no one has accused Ukrainian forces of using their civilians as "human shields". Remember human shields?
All of the nations the U.S. has ever bombed used their citizens as human shields. It wasn't our fault that our bombs were killing thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. It was the devious machinations of our enemies.
Some of Them Were Angry
NOTE:The title and much of the quoted text are from Jackson Browne's brilliant Before the Deluge
Some of them were dreamers
And some of them were fools
Who were making plans and thinking of the future
With the energy of the innocent
They were gathering the tools
They would need to make their journey back to nature
While the sand slipped through the opening
And their hands reached for the golden ring
With their hearts they turned to each other's hearts for refuge
In the troubled years that came before the deluge
As we head into the abyss...
For far too long far too many of us have mostly ended up just going along with some of the worst acts against humanity, ever. Either in outright denial of reality or via superhuman feats of rationalization...or by being misled in one way or another, or by simple exhaustion, pummeled as we are by the constant torrent of media-borne propaganda.
I'd like to make my feelings perfectly clear on this whole Russia v. Ukraine thing.
I've seen online how people say that we must show our "strength" by standing up to Russia. That this is Munich all over again (because obviously every enemy is Hitler).
When I've tried to push back on this I've been called a Putin apologist, a Russian bot, and a Tankie.
So I'm going to simplify my argument in a way that everyone can understand.
In the west all we hear about is Russia is about to do this or that, without Russia actually doing those things. The separatists in the Donbas region feel very different.
“There is no way we were ever going to unite Ukraine. I mean, Iraq. Afghanistan!”
- Biden
Biden wasn't the only one that got confused yesterday.
"I think we're basically just on the cusp of war. I think it's all but certain in my mind that there's going to be a large European war... My concern now is making sure that the U.S. is postured for that outcome... The ball is in Putin's court" - @AVindman w/ @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/QXiGv4B9as
— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) January 22, 2022
Russia has made a very specific accusation, but offered no proof to back it up.
A week ago Russian gas giant Gazprom offered a 50% tariff discount for an additional gas transit to Europe. It was a modest gesture for dialogue and peace.
Washington promptly freaked out and made a wild accusation that resembles the Saddam WMD lies.
Back in 2018, after Trump bombed Syria, Congress proposed an AUMF for our military occupation and efforts at regime change in that nation. Nancy Pelosi insisted that an AUMF was necessary if we wanted to continue to bomb Syria.
