New York Times columnist Tom Friedman’s column of May 31st sounds just like one of George W. Bush’s pet phrases justifying his war of choice against Iraq: “9/11 Changed Everything!” He writes that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is really an invasion of Europe. Fine. But this rhetoric is being used to justify a dangerous escalation that is bringing us closer to nuclear war with Russia. Mr. Friedman is clearly reliving his Iraq days, when he just as enthusiastically cheered on Bush’s war while posing as a liberal to create the illusion of bipartisanship.
Two weeks ago, we wrote that the conflict arose, in part,
because the US went back on its word in 1990 to never expand NATO to Russia’s
borders. But now that it’s done, it’s done. The US should protect NATO to
prevent such a scenario where an invasion of Ukraine turns into an invasion of
Europe. Russia understands red lines. They have made a lot less trouble in
places like Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia than they have non-NATO states
such as Ukraine.
But there were plenty of missteps that the US and NATO made
in the leadup to the Russian invasion. Ukraine does not remotely meet the
standards necessary for ascension to NATO, which was one of Russia’s main
issues. Ukraine is only ranked by Freedom House as “Partly Free,” with similar
scores as Orban’s Hungary and Duterte’s Philippines. Transparency
International, a group which evaluates corruption of countries around the
world, ranked Ukraine in 2021 as 122nd out of 180 countries that
they monitor, with a score of 32 out of 100. The US and NATO could have made
clear that while Russia does not have veto power over any country’s membership,
they have no plans to allow Ukraine to ascend given their lack of democracy and
their widespread corruption.
The US has a whole history of employing proxies. On
September 28th, 1996, the New York Times reported what Hungarians
suspected all along – declassified documents revealed that Radio Free Europe
broadcasts made during the 1956 Hungarian uprisings against Soviet rule falsely
implied that if they revolted, they would receive help from the West.
In 1979, the US, six
months before the fact, began secretly aiding the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan
with a view of luring Russia into that country. This was admitted in 2001 by Zbigniew
Brzezinski, who was Jimmy Carter’s Secretary of State at the time. He saw it as
a golden opportunity to lure the USSR into a war that they could not win and
bring about the collapse of that country.
Furthermore, in October 1979, as reported in the January 29th,
2019 New York Times, declassified documents show that two months before the
invasion, the new President of Afghanistan, Hafizullah Amin, floated the idea
of realigning from the Soviet Union to the US, which set off alarm bells in the
Kremlin. The Soviets feared that the US would deploy missiles there, meaning
that they would have five minutes to respond if the US were to then order a
nuclear attack. Putin’s reaction in 2022 is no different than the Soviet
reaction in 1979; both times, Russia saw the risk of a long, protracted war as
preferable to nuclear missiles stationed five minutes from Moscow.
After the Gulf War in 1991, President George Bush I incited
the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam. These revolts were put down,
falsely implying that the US would come to their aid if they did.
Now, Ukraine is the latest proxy that the US is using to
fight the Russians. Instead of being one of the most corrupt countries in
Europe and one that is not totally free, Ukraine is presented as a bastion of
freedom. The US and NATO engaged in actions, like joint military drills with
Ukraine, that were clearly designed to trigger a Russian response. Ukraine
threw gas on the fire when it floated the idea of abandoning its 1994 agreement
with Russia and the US that saw it giving up its nuclear program. Nuclear
missiles in Ukraine would have meant a five minute response time for Russia had
anyone decided to launch them.
The whole mentality among politicians at the national and
international level today is that two wrongs somehow make a right. President
Putin saw the US and NATO’s measures as justification for its invasion of
Ukraine along with shelling Ukranian apartment buildings, killing civilians,
and creating the biggest refugee crisis in Europe since World War II. In turn,
President Biden saw two wrongs (Putin’s invasion) as making a right when he
committed to a policy of arming Ukraine, sanctioning Russia, and blowing a hole
in our economy in an insane policy of escalation.
Mr. Friedman, for those of us with long memories, was one of
the chief enablers of George Bush’s war of choice in Iraq even though Saddam
Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks and shot terrorists. While he
is right to condemn Putin’s invasion of Ukraine and he rightly rejects more
inflammatory solutions like regime change, he offers no solutions for the US
beyond continued escalation and the continued using of Ukraine, and by
extension Europe, as cannon fodder against the Russians. Meanwhile, gas prices
here in Worth County just went up again, going up to $4.39 a gallon Thursday.
Either war is finished or we are. Once the shooting in
Ukraine is over, the US needs to engage in verifiable disarmament talks with
Russia that include both conventional and nuclear forces. Finland and Sweden
may or may not ascend to NATO depending on whether or not they overcome Turkey’s
objections; however, the US should commit to no more NATO expansion. The idea
should not be to surround Russia with missiles and troops; the idea should be
to protect Europe against any future Russian aggression. Ukraine should be a
buffer state between NATO states and Russia that will help keep the two parties
separated.
Ultimately, the goal should be the complete abolition of
nuclear weapons along with the elimination of the need for organizations such
as NATO. Unfortunately, too many politicians have lost sight of these goals
because they are on the gravy train of the Military Industrial Complex that
President Eisenhower tried to warn us against.
No comments:
Post a Comment