A piece was published in the Erie Times News of Pennsylvania with the title: Putin plans to crush liberty in Ukraine. Free World must unite to stop him.
It is attributed to four Congresspersons: Brian Fitzpatrick (Pennsylvania), Andy Harris (Maryland), Marcy Kaptur (Ohio) and Mike Quigley (Illinois). The first two are Republicans, the other two Democrats, for all the difference it makes.
Quigley represents a district right south of the one I live in. His seat was formerly occupied by Dan Rostenkowski, who was involved in a franking scandal with the U.S. Post Office; later by Rod Blagojevich, who in his later capacity of governor of Illinois went to prison for allegedly attempting to sell recently inaugurated President Barack Obama’s vacant Senate seat to the highest bidder; then by Rahm Emanuel before he became the chief of staff for Obama in his first term in the White House. (Blagojevich’s attorneys complained that they weren’t allowed to introduce a tape of a telephone conversation between their client and Emanuel, then White House chief of staff, on the above transaction during their client’s trial. The implication was that the tape would exonerate Blagojevich, perhaps by demonstrating that the White House was in on the aborted auctioning of a sitting president’s Senate seat.) As you can see, American officeholders have distinct notions about transparent and honest government to pass onto their Ukrainian counterparts.
The essence of their appeal, for such it is, is a call for an international coalition to confront Russia. The operative sentences are: It is time for the free world to rise up together. Let the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe rally the global coalition that is needed to defend Ukrainian sovereignty and independence….
What is more to the point is the language used by the selfless servants of the people laboring in the Citadel of Democracy, for whom the most vital demand of their constituents in Illinois, Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania is to deploy their sons and daughters to Eastern Europe for war with Russia in defense of the Volodymyr Zelensky regime in Ukraine.
When the lotus-eaters and aging Aquarians in Moscow and their well-wishers in the West fantasize about splits in the Congress, splits in the two political parties, splits in the foreign power establishment and so forth, it’s time for a sobering dose of the following vitriol and billingsgate to awaken them from their wish-fulfilment slumbers. The sentiments expressed below are to one degree or another those of almost the entire US governing class, especially the foreign power establishment. They reflect the worldview of all the major news media except for Tucker Carlson at Fox, who is now under coordinated assault from a phalanx of pro-war shills from Don Lemon at CNN and and Rachel Maddow at MSNBC to former George W. Bush speechwriter David (Axis of Evil) Frum in the Atlantic. It is exceedingly difficult to trust people who harbor, and widely trumpet, these sentiments toward you:
- Russia amasses more than 100,000 well-armed soldiers at Ukraine’s border, awaiting the signal to unleash further bloodshed
- The Kremlin is preparing to sacrifice the lives of thousands of its own men and women for no other reason than to bolster the ego of its ruthless dictator, Vladimir Putin
- Having twice taken bites out of Ukraine’s territory, Putin is hungry for more
- His callous and unyielding aggression…must be halted
- (By way of parallel when) Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein ordered his Republican Guard across the border into Kuwait, the United States led a United Nations-backed coalition to drive the invading troops back (echoing the point made by Evelyn Farkas recently)
- Russia has engaged in countless atrocities – this is part of Putin’s legacy of madness
- (Putin is) isolated from the norms of decent behavior
- Let us slam the door on Putin’s wild nightmare
- If Russia is allowed to carry out its brutal schemes, the slaughter of countless innocents is inevitable
Rick Rozoff has been involved in anti-war and anti-interventionist work in various capacities for forty years. He lives in Chicago, Illinois. He is the manager of Stop NATO. This originally appeared at Anti-Bellum.
Correct. The dangerous part of such delusional people is the fact that they have no clue as to how much damage the Russian Federation can do to Europe and the US and any number of alleged “allies” – let alone when coordinated with China, the second largest superpower in the world.
These are the morons who will get us involved in WWIII – which, as many people have pointed out, will be the last “world war”.
Just reading Andrei Martyanov’s latest post, worth quoting in the context of this article:
Desperation Sets in
https://smoothiex12.blogspot.com/2022/01/desperation-sets-in.html
As Trump artfully pointed out, why should Americans care about the Ukraine border when the America southern border is undefended and leaking like a sieve?
The Ukraine is also a European war.
The US is in no position, condition, or mood to fight another European war.
Even Biden can see this between naps, and he’s lucid enough not to station troops in Ukraine.
Whatever the Russophobic inclinations of many in the US political elite, many were only in it for the money. They are divided on the merits of spending any more blood to loot what would be very little treasure milking a Ukraine war. Never mind the dangers of it burning well beyond their control and comfort level.
The economic war with China has the attention of the most pragmatic US elites. Its dawning on them that hot war sets them back in economic war; they can’t fight both, but still reluctant to admit they have to make a choice.
However, even that’s moving beyond their control. Peace is becoming the only path forward that doesn’t led to tangible geopolitical defeat just 20 years into the Eurasian/Asian century. Even if peace is construed as kind of defeat in and of itself, its preferable to actually losing.
The US-Mexico border probably routinely has more US troops deployed within 100 miles of it than the Russia-Ukraine border has Russian troops deployed within 100 miles of it right now.
Stopping immigrants isn’t “defense.”
I remember sitting in the theater watching the original “Red Dawn” movie and when one of the actors talks about “the whole Nicaraguan and Cuban armies” rolling up Central America to invade the US, every one in the audience cracked up. The premise was just absurd. Both the original and the remake were based on idiotic premises. Fun movies, though.
No, its border police work.
Although, granted there are those who think its work that shouldn’t be done at all.