This commentary is by Kem Phillips of Cavendish, a retired statistician who served stateside in the U.S. Army from 1969 to 1971.
Several statements by demonstrators reported in the VTDigger article “Antiwar demonstrators urge Sanders to seek diplomacy in Ukraine” deserve scrutiny.
The war in Ukraine is an unprovoked attack on a sovereign country by a murdering aggressor using a bogus rendition of history as justification. (See “The Russo-Ukrainian War” by Serhii Plokhy). The victim, Ukraine, borders on several NATO countries, endangering them as well as Ukraine, and bringing in the U.S. by treaty obligation if those countries are also attacked.
According to the article, “The demonstrators called for a swift diplomatic resolution to the war with Russia and for an end to U.S. aid for the war effort.”
Who least wants war in Ukraine and would like a fair settlement? The obvious answer to that question is “the Ukrainians.” A just peace would require Russia to leave all of Ukraine, including Crimea, give the war criminal Putin over to the International Court of Justice, which has already issued an arrest warrant for him, and make Russia pay Ukraine many hundreds of billions of dollars in reparations,
Some demonstrators chanted “What is war? … Who profits? Who dies?” A little reading of history would answer the first question. The second can be answered simply: Russia profits, but only if they win. And who dies? Aside from a few courageous Americans who have gone on their own to Ukraine to fight, the answer is not “Americans.” It is Ukrainians and Russians.
For the Ukrainians, it means two classes of people: the Ukrainian soldiers defending their country and the tens of thousands of civilians who Putin has bombed without mercy or concern. (Apparently the ex-KGB agent and now very rich Patriarch Kirill of the Orthodox Church is quite happy with this carnage.)
The Russians are largely men conscripted from the lower classes plus many prisoners risking their lives to get out of jail. They are in a sense victims, but given what they have done and continue to do to Ukrainians, they get no sympathy from me.
The coalition member who said “the war in Ukraine had brought the world closer to nuclear conflict than ever before” missed both a historical fact and an obvious bit of logic.
First, in fact we had nuclear conflict on the 6th and 9th of August 1945. It was, of course, one-sided and a terrible thing.
Second, if what became the Allies had not caved in to Hitler in the first place, that might not have been thought necessary. (“The Allies agreed to concede the Sudetenland to Germany in exchange for a pledge of peace. This agreement was known as the Munich Pact.”
If NATO countries cave in to Putin and settle for less than a just peace, this war criminal will be emboldened to extort the West for any number of concessions, including reabsorption of various Eastern European countries. Eventually that could lead to what these demonstrators fear most: nuclear war.
Our investment in this war, which consists mainly of arms, mostly made here by American workers, and no soldiers, is a small price to pay to defend a democratic country next to our NATO allies and to prevent what is likely to happen if Putin wins.
