Culture wars
Here in the states, it’s often hard to put “Putin’s War” into context. Today’s article from the Associated Press about Putin’s assault on electrical infrastructure in the recently recaptured major city of Kharkiv, is a perfect opportunity to put Putin’s endless array of war crimes into perspective. In fact, his war crimes in Ukraine are also war crimes for other parts of the globe as well. For example, blockading ports until last month and denying half the world grain to feed themselves, qualifies. Attacking residences, apartment complexes, hospitals, schools etc. are expressly forbidden by international law, yet Putin not only continues, but has expanded these immoral and particularly brutal tactics.
Well over a million Ukrainians, a couple hundred thousand of which are children have been abducted by Russian forces and taken to Russia. At least 100,000 of those children are still “lost” in the system. In actuality, those children have largely been placed in expedited adoption pipelines that will see them grow up as Russian, separated intentionally from their families and homeland, as one tactic of Putin’s effort to commit, “cultural genocide.” Sadly, there are also many other tactics, just as brutal.
Putin continues to attempt, to erase, every hint of Ukrainian identity, including the mass murder of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. Like during the Soviet years, every effort was made to remove the cultural identity of the varied people within the Soviet sphere and replace that identity with a Russian identity. This included then, as it is now in Ukraine, the attempt to make the Ukrainian language obsolete, disallow all unique Ukrainian holidays and historic sites, replacing them with Soviet heroes, language and monuments. This is an insidious campaign to remove every trace of Ukrainian identity from the planet, hence, genocide.
Russian savagery includes multiple efforts to destroy Ukraine’s ability to survive, economically by bombing factories, to feed itself by destroying farmland, or all learning by erasing universities and their libraries, museums to deny citizens their heritage and so on. This is intentional or what international law calls, cultural genocide. Another evil tactic is “genocide by rape” where children born to rape victims have the bloodline of the oppressors. This is evil, on an industrial scale. Putin has decreed that his troops commit all manner of genocide with the Bucha and Mariupol populations being prime examples of genocidal violence.
For six months now, the world has watched in horror at Russian atrocities. Most reporting though does not go the extra step and explain that there is a strategy and intent in those atrocities. Allow me a minute to offer up a comparison that Americans can grasp.
I was raised, primarily in Ohio, in and around, small rural towns. Like Ukraine, Ohio has several large cities as well. Picture for a moment that a foreign army invaded Ohio and proceeded to raze every single major city, including neighborhoods, hospitals, orphanages, schools etc. Endless columns of tanks rolled down interstate 70 and smaller highways, crushing building and lives as they advanced. Then, they systematically destroyed every manufacturing operation and left farms and crops, burned to the ground. Next, they leveled cities the size of Dayton, Akron, Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus.
Ohioans wouldn’t let this go without a fight and would do all possible to save their state. Even after a year or more, when they finally ousted the invaders, there would be nothing left. No libraries, monuments, churches, schools, businesses, gas, water or electricity and more. There would be no way to sustain life across the state. Let’s say also, that they detonated explosives at a nuclear power plant and rendered fields unusable for decades. This is what Putin is doing to Ukraine.
Here's a challenge for everyone, try actually picturing this for your state or nation. Using this new perspective would almost certainly adjust your perspective about everything in your life. We, as freedom loving Americans must use this perspective when evaluating how valuable the world’s aid is to those doing the fighting in Ukraine.
Historically speaking, brutal aggressors like Putin are insatiable when chasing power, territory and enforced loyalty. Were it not Ukraine, maybe it would have been the Baltic states, Poland, other nations in Eastern Europe and beyond. With Xi in China aligning with Putin, and supported in some cases by Modi, in India, the threat to the world, that came to Ukraine’s aid would be immeasurably more severe.
The answer to these threats, lies in the path that is dictated in our new NSS, National Security Strategy (IG). That answer is pretty much the same as standing up to bullies on the school yard. The answer… is unity by those operating with a moral code to defend against savage bullies. Everything in the NSSIG is oriented towards working together on a global or domestic scale to safeguard against bullies like Putin, Modi, Xi, Bolsonaro etc. Unity around shared values have long proved to be the best answer to thugs like Putin.
Adding these thoughts to your perspective is much like assembling a picture puzzle. The more details you fill in after finishing the border pieces, gives you a clear picture of the puzzle. In this case, the picture is Ukrainian genocide. Now that the picture of genocide has come clearly into view, we have a moral duty to stay in the fight. After all, this time may be Ukraine but next… it could be any nation, even ours.
For a later article, I will address one of my main concerns, which is, what will the global threat-picture look like, if Putin, Xi and Modi continue to build their unity?
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