By Robin Lehman
There is a saying from Africa: “When elephants fight, it’s the grass that get trampled.”
Here we go again. Let the forever wars continue. Let’s kill a bunch of people in Ukraine. Korea was not enough, Vietnam was not enough, Afghanistan was not enough. Iraq was not enough. We want another non-essential war in Ukraine. This time it’s Russia starting the actual shooting, “boots on the ground” type war. Normally it would be us, the United States of America, starting a war like this. Do you remember Korea? Do you remember Vietnam? Do you remember Iraq?
In many ways, Ukraine is just like us: it’s politically divided. Just like here, they hate each other. It’s a civil war: Just like here.
Left, and right? We hate each other. You know what I mean?
Whether it be masks or guns or abortions or Trump or Biden: Democrat or Republican.
That’s what Ukraine is going through.
The difference is geography: East versus West in Ukraine.
Here, in the U.S., we hate each other throughout our communities.
In Ukraine it’s about (kind of) West versus East. And unlike here, Ukraine is a tool of East/West business relations. This is definitely about their oligarchs versus our oligarchs.
But what’s most important to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Democrats and Republicans? We must not be humiliated in Eastern Europe in this iteration of the decline of the American empire from the Korea war to Vietnam, to Afghanistan and Iraq.
So when the U.S. backed a coup in 2014 by the neo-Nazi Right sector to overthrow the Russian-friendly, legally-elected president, Yanukovich, the Russians in eastern Ukraine tried to secede from Ukraine. That’s the point at which Russia reintegrated Crimea into Russian authority. In 2015 France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine signed the “Minsk-Normandy” agreement to end the civil war in Ukraine.
Now negotiation is off the table because we are too offended by Russia’s outrageous actions. Not like us in Korea, Vietnam, or Iraq: no, not at all. So, whatever else you say about this horrendous attack, it was not unprovoked.
What I’m trying to get at here is that our imperial governments: Russia’s and ours are fighting a war on Ukrainian soil. We, the working class Americans, must make sure that this war goes no further. It seems to me that we, the working class, right and left, are coming together around this ideal. Neighborhood forums and other sources show support for the Ukrainian people not one side or another. What I fear though is that our imperialist government will convince the workers that it’s patriotic to go to war with Russia in Ukraine. We must resist this propaganda. We must stand with the Russian protesters and protesters around the world, saying no to the imperial powers of Russia and the United States: and for that matter, Europe and China.
Earth is much too small now to continue thinking of us as “ONLY” about our country. We need to recognize global solidarity so that, together, we can fight and ameliorate wealth inequality, global warming, and the coming of more pandemics and all the other problems that will assert themselves over the next century and beyond. Sovereign states can no longer be the only criterion for democratic progress in the 21st century and beyond. We are Americans but we must think globally.
Lehman lives in Warren.
