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<p>Hi Allan</p>
<p>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. <br>
</p>
<p>I do have to disagree with the second paragraph. There is no
evidence that "<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height:
18.4px;"> 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. <br>
</span></p>
<p><span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Art<br>
</span></p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 3/11/23 9:06 a.m., Allan Baker via
craic wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:7E12AB45-BDE9-4A57-A2AD-1CFC1A9507A0@gmail.com">
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8">
CRAICers;
<div><br>
</div>
<div>Here’s a thoughtful note that Jim Taylor published after he
posted a column questioning the reasons for the war in Ukraine:<br>
<div>
<blockquote type="cite"><br>
<div>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"><span> <span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span>But I
thought that this letter from Valentina Gal deserved
publication in its entirety. So I’m sending it out
midweek.<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-transform: none; white-space: normal;
word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;
text-decoration: none; text-indent: 36pt;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">JT</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">Dear
Jim:</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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. <span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span></span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">If the
west were serious about winning this war, they would
have stood up and closed Ukrainian air space on
February 25<sup>th</sup><span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span>of last year,
the way the Ukrainian president suggested. </span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<div style="margin: 0cm; line-height: 15.333332px;
font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times New
Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;">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.]<span
class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><span> </span>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.</span></div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
-webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none;"><span
style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm; line-height:
15.333332px; font-size: 10pt; font-family: "Times
New Roman", serif; caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0);
font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal;
font-weight: 400; letter-spacing: normal; text-align:
start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none;
white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;
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style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 18.4px;"> </span></p>
</div>
</blockquote>
</div>
<br>
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