There are way too many, in my opinion, that are calling for all out war with Russia…..since I am a staunch antiwar individual I will not support any armed involvement in the conflict between Ukraine and ‘Vlad the Invader’…..
But what can the West do to support and aid Ukraine in their fight?
Across the world, political leaders and ordinary citizens have condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. At the same time, there seems to be basically no chance that the United States or any other major world power would send its troops to fight on the Ukrainians’ behalf — for the simple reason that doing so could plausibly lead to a wider war, and even nuclear conflict.
The question then becomes: What can America and its allies do if they continue to rule out direct intervention?
The answer is quite a lot, much of which — though by no means all — is being done already.
The basic Western strategy has been to make the war more painful for Putin: Supply the Ukrainians with weapons while imposing crippling sanctions on the Russian economy. These measures are designed to shift Putin’s cost-benefit analysis, making the war costly enough that he’ll look for some kind of exit. In broad strokes, experts say, it’s a sound strategy — one that can still be escalated, albeit within certain bounds.
“The West has to keep going full speed in the current direction,” says Yoshiko Herrera, a political scientist who studies Russia at the University of Wisconsin Madison. “Right now is not the time to let up on pressure.”
At the same time, Washington and its allies need to think more carefully about their endgame.
My problem is that the US has found $800 million for aid to Ukraine…..with growing poverty and hunger in this country some of that cash would be better spent here helping struggling Americans.
That aside there needs to be a debate on foreign policy instead of always a knee jerk reaction with military hardware…..now is the time for such a debate…..as hard as it may be…..
Conflicts that we now think of as uniting the country were still political. Americans were torn over what to do in World War II, for example. Congress passed a series of neutrality acts in the 1930s, and these isolationist policies were responsible for America’s late entry into the war. And, of course, unity sometimes came at a price. The U.S. government’s steps to punish anti-war speech during World War I, for instance, are good examples of going too far with the idea that dissent is inherently harmful to war efforts.
The reality is that foreign policy has always been contested — and, more often than not, linked to questions of identity and ideology. But debates about war are so interwoven with our larger culture-war politics now that most questions of how to handle military conflict have been largely reduced to partisan scoring. And that’s a problem — not because we need to get back to some bygone bipartisan era, but because real dissension is vital in a democracy, especially in matters of foreign policy.
The seeds of war politics’ merging with culture-war politics arguably date back to the late 1960s, when anti-Vietnam War protests overlapped with civil rights protests and other social movements that challenged the existing social order. Over time, conservatives and liberals diverged in their attitudes toward the war, especially as liberal elites began to criticize it. Starting with the 1968 presidential election, being anti-war became more closely associated with being a liberal Democrat. And the accusation that George McGovern, the 1972 Democratic presidential nominee, was all for “acid, amnesty1 and abortion” helped solidify this cultural connection.
Why It’s Important To Debate Foreign Policy Even In Times Of Conflict
Time for a real debate before it is too late for a solution other than going to yet another war.
Turn The Page!
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
In Saner Thought 
The strength of a democracy is the idea that debate allows the input of a variety of opinion from which compromise is the preferred outcome. The drawback to democracy is exactly the same reasoning… meaning that democracy exists to avoid impulsive, single-minded decisions. Democracies don’t really bode well at times of universal emergency when speed is of the essence to react to national security situations. The pandemic from the very beginning is a typical example. Our already divided country saw any kind of emergency control from government as some attempt for the “other side” to seize political control and “take away our freedoms”. People were becoming infected, the health care system overtaxed, medical staffs exhausted, and the deaths. The nation’s response was a hodge-podge of political idiocy.
During WW2 then Congress created the War Powers Act to give the Prez control…. and it worked. My point here is that in principal, of course debate is always preferred…. but sometimes to get past an immediacy of a situation “decision by committee” is not an efficient process.
The thorn inside our present day process in our working through our “policy” in the Ukraine war is the constant media coverage… every bomb blast, every body in the street as a result, has story behind it of family loss, the despair of a country laid waste by an invading enemy.. an enemy against democracy. Lots of images of mothers with babies in their arms trying to dodge missiles. There’s no way NOT to be overcome with the emotion to want to save these people and crush the villain doing this to them. For now our help is sending the aid to help them survive, humanitarian and military for them to take care of themselves, without the need for us to put our military in harms way. Americans are only human… and we know we have the military and economic prowess to put a stop to this…. but that will very likely mean body bags coming home to American mothers. So.. we send the aid and watch from afar.. as we sit and wait for sanctions to take hold in Russia, and hope for some kind of pressures against Putin where he lives…. and each day we wait more Ukrainian mothers and babies die. There’s always a price for action as well as inaction.
Yep.. debate is always preferred. But debate itself doesn’t exist in the pure vacuum “you share me your opinion, I share you mine, and we compromise” Kumbaya moment. Politics is constantly at play. “We can’t let the other side have any control!” “We can’t give an inch to their ideology!” “If we go along with them now we will lose control down the line!” “The other side put us here!”
All I am suggesting is that are two sides to the moral decision in spending time with debate to address an emergency.
My problem is the we pick and choose which ’emergency’ the debate is over….I mean if bombing civilians is bad then all bombing of civilians is bad…regardless which country does it…..the debate is bought by donors and corporate BS….chuq
I have oft stated, old buddy.. I cannot ever take issue with the person who has lived through war and maybe even contributed to it out of compulsion or devotion to duty and country. I am certainly not qualified. But I can understand the greater moral objection to war as being the inevitable consequence of simply being human. I mean, wtf.. are we supposed to simply accept one group of humans (Russia) clobbering the crap out of another more vulnerable group of humans (Ukraine) for no real reason at all other than one sick tyrant of a human thinks he should? It’s the story of mankind since Adam & Eve. Morally we should never “want” to go to war. We can even say that the concept of war, in all its waste and devastation and death, exists at all to make us not want to engage in it more often than we do.
Here at home the political divide is so fervent that there’s actually Americans wanting to kill other Americans… for politics alone. But that’s what a civil war is all about. Philosophically speaking we can say that mankind just hasn’t learned from his own mistakes…. or.. mankind has learned quite well that mistakes are simply a matter of convenient perception.
I agree with the morals thing….but since the 19th century there seems to those that war is the only answer….the more death and destruction the more money that can be made…..chuq
Reblogged this on NEW BLOG HERE >> https:/BOOKS.ESLARN-NET.DE.
I have to blame our German government. You cannot deal with the devil against all the others. Why are we in need of gas from Russia, promoted by our former chancellor Schröder? In my very personal meaning all of our German politicans got benefits of this, in cash. It’s ultimately a betrayal of democracy. xx Michael
So your politicians are bought the same as ours…..chuq
‘Choosing sides’ is always a double-edged sword. Look what happened in Libya after Ghadaffi was deposed. After toppling Saddam in Iraq, ISIS was let in. Now we are choosing a side that has openly ‘neo-nazi’ fighters in the Azov Battalions operating against the Rusians. They are supplying the war footage, and the rhetoric.
Left to me, I would be reluctant to choose either side. But the MIC in the west is chasing profits for big companies, whatever I think.
Best wishes, Pete.
Exactly….we are repeating mistakes of our past all in the name of profits for the death dealers. chuq