[Craic] Fwd: [Sharpedges] More Ukraine war

[Greg Gillis]

Thank you Allan for some powerful insights. Sadly, so little leadership in
addressing a genuine diplomatic solution which was easily attainable before
this war broke out. Now no leadership to stop it through proper diplomacy.

Peace

Greg


On Sat, Mar 11, 2023 at 12:07 PM Allan Baker via craic <
craic at lists.integralshift.ca> wrote:

> CRAICers;
>
> Here’s a thoughtful note that Jim Taylor published after he posted a
> column questioning the reasons for the war in Ukraine:
>
>
> I’ve had quite a few letters about last week’s column on the first
> anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine -- some supportive, some
> critical. Most of those I will include and/or excerpt for this weekend’s
> Sharp Edges column.
>             But I thought that this letter from Valentina Gal deserved
> publication in its entirety. So I’m sending it out midweek.
> JT
>
>
>
>
> Dear Jim:
>
>
> I couldn’t agree with you more.  I am the daughter of Holodomor survivors.
> [JT: Holodomor was the death by starvation in the 1930s of  an estimated
> 6-8 million Ukranians. ] I lived with the psychological shadow of my
> parents’ experience both in the Ukrainian famine and World War II.  Our
> family was destroyed.
>
>
> You write that the war  is Putin’s political retaliation.  While on the
> surface that may be true, it is much, much more.  It is colonialism and
> greed at its worst.    Russia wants to control Ukraine’s resources, its
> land, its seaports and its people.  The world has known this for more than
> a century.
>
>
> The west is complicit in the problem too.  We knew that Russian oligarchs
> were draining money from the country that should have been spent on the
> Russian people, yet we turned a blind eye to their money laundering schemes
> and accepted their investments in everything from fancy yachts, expensive
> homes, air lines, commercial real estate and so on.  Instead, we benefited
> from the commerce it created.  After the fall of the Soviet Union, we did
> not ask the members of the United Nations to approve the Russian
> Federation’s membership the way we are scrutinizing the application of
> Ukraine and other prospective members.  Yet, we even tolerated the
> disrespect of the Russian who tapped his microphone in the moment of
> silence when honouring the Ukrainian dead.  He should have been kicked out
> on the spot.
>
>
> If the west were serious about winning this war, they would have stood up
> and closed Ukrainian air space on February 25th of last year, the way the
> Ukrainian president suggested.
>
>
> You write that no one benefits from war.  In general that is true,
> however, you are overlooking an important point.  As the war drags on, we
> pride ourselves on the support we have sent.  I am in favour of this
> support myself as I feel we should do whatever we can to help.  What is
> being forgotten though, is that this war has been and is using up stocks of
> obsolete war equipment – everything from rusty Russian rifles to our own
> tanks and so on.  As time goes on, and the Ukrainian military proves
> itself, we send them more modern equipment.  At some point it will all need
> to be replaced, both here and in Ukraine – and who do you think will
> benefit?  We can’t and shouldn’t forget that while many will be sacrificed,
> others will make lots and lots of money for years both on replacing
> military equipment and rebuilding Ukrainian infrastructure.  Some of us
> still remember that Ford engines powered German tanks in the Second World
> War.  Even neutral countries like Switzerland manufacture weapons.  As long
> as they do, in my opinion, they can’t truly be considered neutral.
> Meanwhile, money for weapons pours in, on both sides, as you wrote.
>
>
> You say that Nature may never recover.  In some places in Ukraine, the
> richest soil in the world is up to thirty metres deep.  It has nurtured my
> people since the time of the great cities of Mesopotamia.  New
> archeological research is discovering evidence that Ukraine had
> self-governing cities as long as 5000 years ago.  Ukrainians have tilled
> the soil and lived on it since then.  Yet, at a time when we desperately
> need every inch of good agricultural ground to feed Earth’s population, we
> are turning the best of it into a garbage dump which it will take decades
> to rehabilitate, if it can be rehabilitated.  Meanwhile Ukrainians suffer –
> again.
>
>
> Finally, I would remind your readers that the kind of suffering inflicted
> on both the Ukrainian and Russian families for no good reason lasts for
> generations.  As I learned while researching my book about my mother’s
> experiences in the Holodomor, catastrophic suffering such as is being
> endured by Ukrainian families even changes one’s genetic structure.  [JT:
> This phenomenon is being given the name “epigenetics” and it is real.]  So
> I ask anyone who cares to hear me: “How long are we going to keep throwing
> innocent Ukrainian lives away?”  We should remember that the convenience of
> containing the war in the Ukrainian sandbox, as you put it, will come
> begging with a price some day.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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