[Craic] Fwd: [Sharpedges] More Ukraine war

[Arthur Blomme]

Hi Allan

This is a well thought out letter.  Glad you sent it out.  It is 
important to remember the trauma stored in the Ukrainian DNA arising 
from the Holodore experience.

I do have to disagree with the second paragraph.  There is no evidence 
that  "Russia wants to control Ukraine’s resources, its land, its 
seaports and its people." This appears to me this is a case of the West  
projecting its shadow onto Russia. As Max Blumenthal reports the peaces 
agreement negotiated Last April that was rejected by NATO via Boris 
Johnson stipulated the withdrawal of Russian troops from the Don Bas.

Art

On 3/11/23 9:06 a.m., Allan Baker via craic 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 25^th 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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