An Actual Debate on the Ukraine War!

By Rick Boettger

Thanks to Konk Life for being the first media in America to allow any debate on the Ukraine war.  A number of think tanks publish some debates, but so far it has been forbidden in the American press.  On the Left, any deviance from “As long as it takes!” is regarded as being a Putin-loving apologist, and on the Right, there is only a mild preference for peace to save our weapons supply.

But Konk Life is publishing both sides of the debate sequentially, between me and my friend, the distinguished Roger Kostmayer.  I’m against, he is for.  This week, it is my turn.  Really, Google it—no newspaper is publishing what you’re reading in Konk Life.

Most oddly to me, is that even the think tanks ignore what is to me the greatest argument against the war—that is, we are NOT fighting for “freedom…and democratic values” as Biden put it this month. Remember, Zelinsky first shut down 11 opposing political parties, trying to jail the strongest leader.  He then shut down the media except for his own state-run outlet.  Next he outlawed and confiscated the ancient properties of the branch of the Ukrainian Orthodox church historically closer to Russia, despite their Patriarch’s condemning the Russian invasion.  Most recently, he postponed the election, something we didn’t do through two world wars.  On top of that, Ukraine ranks 116 in anti-corruption, that is, among the worst, next to Angola and El Salvador. Twenty slots worse even than neighboring Belarus.  And they want to get into NATO?  With NO “freedom…and democratic values” at all?

The second undebated  assertion to defend the war is that Ukraine is fighting to defend all of Europe, that if Ukraine falls, Russia will advance on the rest of Europe.  This was called the “Domino Theory” in Vietnam, laughably discredited.  Any reference to this “domino” is also banned.  It shows up in the think tank pieces, but verboten in corporate media—while supporting exact same argument, that we’re fighting there to prevent them from fighting here.  The main sequential danger is not Russia advancing to Vienna, it is the obvious nuclear escalation that we are stumbling into, eyes wide open.

We’ve been on our merry way to escalation with Himars, Bradleys, F-16’s, cluster “munitions,” which are the exact same “bombs” but shot from cannons instead of dropped from planes, and even less accurate. The most recent Russian sin is not allowing Ukraine to sell its wheat.  This after Ukraine bombed the bridge supplying Crimea.  For this, Russia is decried as “criminally inhumane…totalitarian murderer…” requiring us to send our own ships to war with Russia  This after we firebombed Tokyo and 60 other cities, intentionally killing hundreds of thousands of civilians to “break their will,” in what I guess must have been a “non-criminal…humanitarian” fashion.

Let’s face it: we’re in Ukraine out of a guilty conscience over abandoning Afghanistan so badly—we’ve already admitted to the U.S. three times as many Ukrainians we don’t know than Afghan interpreters who risked their lives for us.  

So that is the pro-peace treaty side of the argument.  Nowhere have I read any counter to these facts, and I welcome any arguments against them.

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