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Political Rants

All the wrong parts of being right

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It’s been a busy week in politics and public policy, like drinking from a fire hose. In addition to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine, the State of the Union was on Tuesday night, not to mention primaries in Texas. Of course, the attack on Ukraine is dominating the news, and understandably so. There’s nothing right about Russia’s campaign.

Personally, I am all in favor of extensive press coverage during wartime. What we’re seeing, though, in the United States is the propaganda machine kicking into high gear. Yes, it’s in support of the Ukrainian people, and yes, that’s the right position to take, but the level of overblown hyper patriotic romanticized treatment of war and resistance is really disturbing. That’s in part because I’ve seen this machine running on all cylinders before, and that never leads to good things.

Here are some of the things that bug me about mainstream coverage of the conflict:

They’re like us. And so are their lawns.

We’ve heard this from multiple correspondents on multiple news outlets. Sam Seder’s Majority Report talked about the phenomenon on Monday. They look like us, not like “refugees”. They’re prosperous, Christian, and, well, white. They’ve got homes and lives much like ours and could even live in the same neighborhood. Therefore, they are more worthy of our sympathy than those grimy old middle easterners.

Now, I should point out that these observations come in the midst of vital reporting about what’s happening in Ukraine. That coverage is essential, whether it’s delivered by major networks or by lowly citizen journalists. I just wish to hell they would cover every war with this level of energy, particularly ones like the Yemen conflict, which literally could not continue without our active help.

The mythical “no-fly zone”

The suggestion of a no-fly zone over Ukraine has been advanced by a number of people, including officials of the Ukrainian government. I don’t know what’s in those officials’ minds, but people over here don’t have a clear idea of how such a zone works. For one thing, it’s typically employed against developing nations who step out of line, like Iraq, which effectively had no air force.

Contrary to popular belief, no-fly zones are not a magic impenetrable shield. It involves deploying forces in mass, shooting down enemy (i.e. Russian) aircraft, when necessary, and keeping it up over the long term. If we were to undertake such a strategy, it would mean World War III. How that would help the Ukrainians is unclear to me. In fact, what’s abundantly clear is that this is the worst conceivable outcome and should be avoided at all costs. Crazy talk.

Kindness of strangers (or lack of same)

Over the past few days, I’ve been hearing television commentators wax poetic about the generosity of Ukraine’s neighboring countries with respect to their acceptance of refugees. On Morning Joe, panel members were gushing to Mika Brzezinski about how proud her father (architect of the first Afghan war) would have been of the Polish government.

What they haven’t been talking about so much is how the Poles are treating African and Indian residents of Ukraine who show up at their border. Democracy Now! covered this on Wednesday, and it isn’t pretty. But then Poland, like some other countries in the region, has a long record of turning away dark-skinned people. So much for the pride of Dr. Brzezinski.

Nuclear blackmail goes both ways

Putin made a big show of putting his nuclear forces on high alert. It’s not clear what this means exactly, but it’s been all over U.S. television, and it is unnerving, as it should be. What should be a much larger story, though, is the obvious fact that the United States maintains an effective first-strike policy with respect to nuclear weapons. That is to say, we have always refused to rule out first use. That is an implicit threat that the entire world, including Russia, has had to live with for more than seventy years. (See Dan Ellsberg’s book, The Doomsday Machine, for the full story.)

Bottom line, this is becoming a full orchestra of emotionally potent, manipulative coverage blasting out across multiple channels. Even though it’s obvious that a neo-fascist Russian government is unjustly attacking Ukraine, we need to keep our bearings. Don’t get swept away. We’ve seen this play before, and it doesn’t end well.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

It’s the assholes vs. the fuckers

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NOTE: The Russian invasion of Ukraine began a day after I finished this post. The points are still relevant, in my humble opinion.. jp

In light of some of the Twitter arguments I’ve been getting into, I thought it might be a good idea to return, once again, to the Russia/Ukraine issue. It’s not hard to find people who are more well-informed on this score than I am. I am not an expert. That said, many of the commentators I see on cable television are not experts, either. I see that as a license to bloviate in these dark and disturbing times.

As many of you know, Twitter is no place for a nuanced foreign policy debate, and I’m not certain that blogging is any better suited to the task. I’ll let you be the judge of that. I have blogged on this issue before, most recently just a couple of weeks ago. And so here I go, as the shadow of war falls over all of us once again. Let’s make a few things clear, shall we?

Point one: Putin is not a nice man

When I criticize the United States’ role in bringing about the Ukraine crisis, people on Twitter accuse me of being an apologist for Putin, even a fan of the Russian president. Oldest trick in the book. For the record, Putin is an autocratic creep-ass, willing to put thousands of people at risk or engage in mass murder just to make a point. I’ve never liked him, but neither do I ever conflate him with the country he leads. His somewhat unscrewed speech from a few nights ago just confirms what I’ve always assumed – he’s a craven neo-czarist thug, and he has a constituency that wants just that.

Point two: We wanted an autocratic Russia

Today’s Russia is partly the product of decades of bad policy. Few seem to remember that in 1993, when then-president Boris Yeltsin shelled the Russian parliament because they weren’t doing his will, the nascent Clinton administration was very supportive. This is simply the most gross example of how we favored a dominant executive in Russia from the very start of the post-Soviet era.

It totally makes sense, when you look back on the history of U.S. foreign policy. We like having one dude or a small gaggle of dudes (but really just one) to deal with in a foreign country, rather than some random elected body of representatives. Yeltsin was dictatorial but compliant with U.S. direction, which is why when Russians reflect on the demographic and economic catastrophe that rolled over them in the 1990s, they reserve much of the blame for us.

Point three: Don’t blame socialism

Okay, let’s put this to bed once and for all. Russia was an expansionist imperial power during the Czarist period. To a limited extent, this was true during the communist period as well. Now, in post-communist Russia, they’re trying to build a cordon sanitaire to their west once again. This is a Russia thing, not a commie thing – Russia will always throw its weight around to some extent, because – like us – it thinks highly of itself. Nothing to do with socialism .

Point four: Whose mutual defense obligation?

Those who insist that Ukraine should be invited to join NATO should consider what they’re suggesting. How many nation states should our young people be asked to defend with their lives? Our military men and women are already on the hook for defending Poland, the Baltic States, Montenegro, Romania, Slovenia, for crying out loud. Are we also going to ask them to stand between Ukraine and Russia? What’s next – Quemoy and Matsu? Just because so many of our young people are willing to wear the uniform doesn’t mean we should be eagerly pitchforking them into one hopeless fight after another.

Point five: There is a NATO already

Another common rejoinder from my Twitter friends is that if we appease Putin now, he will roll into Poland, occupy Eastern Europe, and drive to Germany and France. Now, I know it’s cold comfort, but Twitter friends, for god’s sake, Russia is faced with a solid wall of NATO allies to its west, each on a hair-trigger to call in the American military if it even smells like Russian tanks are on their way. Any attempt by Vlad to channel Peter the Great would result in World War III and probably the end of effing everything. So … uh … no worries?

I could go on, but for right now, let’s at least agree to pray for peace and encourage our leaders to find that off-ramp I was talking about a couple of weeks ago. There’s plenty of blame to go around for this debacle, but my hope is that cooler heads will prevail.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

When war is always the answer

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As I write this, we appear to be inching towards that thing we always say we don’t want but nearly always opt for. The difference this time is that we’re flirting with a conflict that, at minimum, will send the global economy into yet another tailspin, and, at maximum, will result in terminal nuclear conflict. Neither seems to me a good option.

I have written about this previously, of course – as has nearly everyone. My hope has been that we would begin to back away from the breach, but that hasn’t happened yet. This past week, French President Macron met with Putin and seemed to come away with assurances that the Russians wouldn’t escalate the situation. Somewhat encouraging, though it is a slender thread from which to dangle the fate of this insane world.

Mutually supporting motives

This threatened conflict has brought the art of Kremlinology back with a vengeance, which must please Putin no end. In truth, the practice never entirely went away. But now there’s something like a cottage industry in supposition about what’s going on between Vlad’s ears. I guess people have to keep themselves busy somehow as we wait for the world to explode like a firecracker.

One of the most informed discussions along these lines took place on Democracy Now! on Monday. The New Yorker’s Masha Gessen and Anatol Lieven of the Quincy Institute talked about the simmering conflict threatening to boil over. Lieven sees overriding considerations of national security interests in what Russia is doing; Gessen sees it more as an expression of Putin’s anxiety over his waning hold on leadership.

I actually think they’re both right – the two theories are not mutually exclusive. Putin is dead set against NATO membership for Ukraine, as I’m sure any Russian leader would be. He also likes to play to his base – basically that large population of Russians who want their country to be a world power and not be pushed around by the West.

Good memories for bad things

There’s no justification for military aggression, and I have never been a fan of Putin, as I’ve said many times. But the strongman leader thing is a direct outgrowth of the catastrophic collapse of the Soviet state back in the nineties. In America, people see this as a time of triumph and vindication, as well as a lot of back-slapping.

During the 1990s, while the U.S. was helping to midwife the new capitalist Russia, the country went through a Great Depression-like economic failure resulting in loss of income, pensions, and something like five million excess deaths. This remains a fresh memory in the minds of many Russians. Somewhat like the North Koreans, whose country was destroyed by U.S. munitions in the 1950s, they know the consequences of letting the West get the upper hand.

Looking for an off-ramp

As Americans, our problem is a simple one. We can’t stand to see other countries do with impunity what we ourselves have repeatedly done with impunity. When the Russians were using hysterical firepower in Syria, it was all over U.S. media. Now that our bombs are killing even more Yemenis, you barely hear about the place. After the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, what standing to we have to tell others to play nice?

That said, it seems only reasonable for us to make every effort to keep this conflict from happening. For the sake of the Ukrainians and Russians that could die as a result, it is in no way worth it to anyone.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Pulling us up to the brink again

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I’m not in the greatest state of mind right now, so I’ll be brief. I just wanted to take a moment to amend my post from last week, Examining the Three Crises Three. In short, I missed a crisis or two. And the one that appears to be percolating up into the national consciousness is the Ukraine Crisis.

Now, the national conversation about this conflict is enough to drive anyone mad. I have never seen so many policy cross-currents between left and right as over this question. Trumpist right-wingers are adapting a narrow anti-war stance that appears to be counseling caution with respect to Russia and crackpot aggression toward China. “Muscular” liberals and centrists appear to be hell bent on building an iron wall around the Soviet …. I mean, Russia. Dogs are dancing with cats. What a mess.

What about the Minsk agreement?

There is a diplomatic solution to this. Anatol Lieven, writing for The Nation, details The Minsk II agreement, worked out in 2015, which provided for limited autonomy for some of the disputed parts of Ukraine. He writes:

“A solution exists that was drawn up by France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine and endorsed by the US, the European Union, and the United Nations. This solution corresponds to democratic practice, international law and tradition, and America’s own past approach to the settlement of ethnic and separatist conflicts. Moreover, it requires no concessions of real substance by either Ukraine or the US.” (Ukraine: The Most Dangerous Problem in the World)

Lieven works with the Quincy Institute, a foreign policy think tank headed by Andrew Bacevich, none of whose researchers are likely to show up on Morning Joe anytime soon.

So why are we ….? Oh, yeah.

We appear to be beefing up our presence in Eastern Europe, preparing to wield crippling sanctions against Russia, etc. The one thing we don’t appear eager to do is simply admit that Ukraine is not in the short line for NATO membership. Frankly, it shouldn’t be in the long line either. And most of the commentators closest to power claim that the U.S. has no intention of defending Ukraine militarily within its borders.

Okay, but what is this conflict about? Why are we facing off at the front lines of what has the potential to be a disastrous, perhaps world-ending war? My guess is that it’s because we always lead with the military. That’s where we hold the strongest hand, so we always play it. See Iraq. See Libya. See Syria.

Instant money – just add congress

Congressional leadership on both sides of the aisle – Democrats and Autocrats (formerly Republicans) – are falling over each other trying to shovel money into Ukraine’s military. The price tag is around $500 million.

When it comes to this sort of thing, there’s always money. When it comes to pulling people out of poverty, even children, the cupboard is bare. Let’s hope this little investment in bellicosity doesn’t trigger the global holocaust we’ve been arming up for since before I was born.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Just a few short minutes to midnight

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Sometimes it’s hard to ignore the extent to which our past haunts us. I suspect that most senior news editors grew up during the cold war. That may be why our media culture seems to be stuck in a very retrograde vision of the world. That east v. west pattern was struck deep, and it will take more than a little rain to wear it off.

The current crisis unfolding in eastern Europe is a chilling example of this. If Americans rely on the mainstream media to shape their perception of what’s happening overseas, they will not hear a single skeptical voice regarding our current policy. And if this administration doesn’t get a lot of push-back on this issue, we may find ourselves on the brink of a terminal nuclear war before we even know what’s happening.

If you thought you were safe because Trump exited the White House last January, think again.

The cost of NATO expansion

I’ve blogged about this before, but it’s worth repeating. Nations have enduring interests, and regardless of who is running the country, leaders will pursue them any way they can. If someone interferes with this pursuit, there will likely be hard feelings, perhaps conflict. With regard to Russia, vital interests include, crucially, not being threatened with invasion from the West, particularly. That sentiment is the result of their having been invaded three times since the rise of Napoleon, the last time at the cost of 20 million souls.

When the Soviet Union fell, the United States (under then-president George H. W. Bush) pledged to Gorbachev not to expand NATO any further to the east. The United States quickly abrogated that agreement, bringing Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Baltic states into the alliance through the 1990s and 2000s. Further expansion into Ukraine would bring NATO right to the border of Russia, and they find that prospect to be unacceptable. And yet Biden and his foreign policy team will give no assurance that NATO membership for Ukraine is off the table.

This is nuts. The Doomsday Clock isn’t inching towards midnight for nothing. War with Russia simply cannot happen – so what the fuck are these people thinking?

The pivot to Asia

Speaking of indefensible positions, the Biden Administration is ratcheting up the pressure on China over various policy disputes. The administration tends to point an accusatory finger at Beijing over their treatment of the Uyghurs (with some justice), as well as their policy on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and shipping lanes around the periphery of Asia. There is merit in some of these positions, but it’s kind of hard to argue that Biden and his State Department are acting out of principle.

We can do next to nothing to affect how China behaves. But there are other bad actors amongst the family of nations with whom we have tremendous influence. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, UAE, Israel … even Turkey relies on us to some extent. The Saudi-led, U.S. enabled war on Yemen has produced the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, and yet we’re still shipping arms to MBS. That’s to say nothing of what we ourselves have done in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria.

Worthy and unworthy victims

Talking heads on Morning Joe spent most of the last decade obsessing over Syria and Russian aggression. Now roughly as many people have died in Yemen as during the Syrian conflict, and there’s not a peep out of those fuckers.

Hey, if you want to save lives and help the oppressed, start with the low-hanging fruit … namely those we actively persecute, by our own actions and by proxy.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

Fire hose 3.0.

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Like so many weeks during the Trump era, this one has been dizzying. It started with the massive climate change resistance marches led by Greta Thunberg and other young people, and it’s ending with what appears to be the most brazen example yet of Donald Trump self-dealing in the conduct of his office. Whoa, momma … it’s like drinking from a fire hose …. again.

Let me start with these amazing young climate activists. I have to say, if anyone is going to be able to save our sorry asses, it’s these folks …. and I don’t mean that we should sit back, fold our arms, and wait for them to deliver us from climate catastrophe. I mean that their activism can be the catalyst for real change. It is impossible to argue with people who will inevitably inherit the world that we are so actively wrecking. Their outrage is justified, and we should follow their lead. There have been times when I have fallen into resignation on this issue, I will admit, but they give me reason to rise again.

Our last hope,people.

This week’s convening of the UN General Assembly featured some tough talk by bigots and fascists, not least of which being our cheap-hair POTUS. He called for, in essence, a coalition of the willing against Iran, called out Venezuela yet again, and called himself a “nationalist” while deploring globalism. Strange speech, read haltingly by a man who sounded like he just scaled five flights of stairs. Then, of course, the was Bolsonaro, Brazil’s little wannabe autocrat, who suggested that stories about the burning of the Amazon were “fake news”. This, of course, bears on the first story, which is necessarily the most important story on Earth.

Then, of course, there’s Trump’s Ukraine scandal. Probably the most amazing part of this story is the transcript of his phone call with Ukrainian president Zelenskyy. “The United States has been very good to Ukraine. I wouldn’t say that it’s reciprocal necessarily because things are happening that are not good,” Trump said to the leader of a besieged, small country dependent on foreign aid from the U.S. that was being held up by the President. “I would like you to do us a favor though because our country has been through a lot and Ukraine knows a lot about it.” He then goes on to babble about how Zelenskyy should talk to Rudy Giuliani and implied that Biden and his son had been involved in something that needed investigating. It’s a bit like listening to the Nixon tapes … “Blow the safe!”

That’s the kind of week we’ve had. Whatever will next week bring?

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Short takes.

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So many things going on in the news that it’s hard to pick which one to pull my blowhard routine on. So I’ll blow a little less hard this week, so to speak. Here goes.

Trust me on this. Again.TPP / MAI – It’s been a full court press on the Trans Pacific Partnership fast-track authority issue currently facing the House of Representatives. As it happens, WikiLeaks has released another leaked chapter of the agreement, this one dealing with “Transparency for Health Care”, so to speak. The more that emerges on this agreement, the more it seems like the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) that was killed in the early 2000’s – basically an investors’ rights agreement, written by corporate lobbyists seeking to elevate the status of their superhuman client conglomerates to a status above that of sovereign nations. The House has turned fast track legislation back, fortunately, but this is truly the thing that wouldn’t die. We will have to remain vigilant on this issue.

Boots in Iraq, Missiles in Europe – Obama is getting in touch with his more bellicose side this past week, with threats to base medium range missiles in Europe (with which to threaten Russia and counter their recent cruise missile deployment and “aggression” against Ukraine) and a promise to send another 500 or so “advisers” to Iraq’s Anbar Province to join the campaign against ISIS. One would think that these two items would be hard to reconcile – a thrust against unwarranted extraterritorial aggression … paired with unwarranted extraterritorial aggression. Still, when the empire does it, it’s not contradictory or ironic.

Jail Break – One of the biggest stories since the last sporting event our news organizations obsessed over. Pretty impressive display of ingenuity, getting out of that massive prison. I can’t help but feel sorry for their alleged accomplice, whose name and face are being displayed across the media with the usual abandon.

Texas Hold-em – This time, we have video of a police officer – a trainer, no less – wrestling a bikini-clad black teenager to the ground, pulling a gun on some other kids, doing a dramatic shoulder roll, etc. He has resigned, blaming his dramatic behavior on having had a difficult day responding to two suicide attempts. Wait … they send THIS guy to talk someone off the ledge? Hope to hell they were white.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

Week that wasn’t.

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Just a few short takes on a variety of subjects. A lot to focus on, so I’ll try not to focus too much on anything.

Burning people alive, American styleISIS Killing. The so-called “Islamic State” burned a Jordanian captive alive this week. In retaliation, the Jordanian King executed some prisoners. Meanwhile, we dropped some bombs on some nameless people, some of which, quite possibly, were burned alive (though not in front of a camera). Your pick as to who is the biggest asshole here. On points of style, it’s a toss up. On volume, we win hands down.

Ukraine. The reporting on this crisis has been abysmal, though not surprising. Mainstream media, including left-leaning outlets like MSNBC, have been toeing the administration line by and large. When we hear from them about casualties on the Kiev side, it’s in graphic detail. Deaths on the separatist side are somehow authorless, with the persistent question of whether they might be the result of bad aim by the separatists. This is a tremendously dangerous conflict, resulting from nearly three decades of bad policy on the part of the U.S. and Europe. Instead of making promises in Kiev, Kerry should be in Moscow talking to the Russians about how to dial this mess back before it gets any hotter.

Vaccinations. Some substantial smoke-blowing over the question of whether or not parents should have the right to refuse vaccinations for their children. Governor Christie and Senator Paul both weighed in, then weighed out … somewhat … when they heard the reaction. Meanwhile, 100 kids in California have come down with measles, another smaller group in Illinois. These kids are, in part, victims of misinformation about the science behind (a) MMR vaccines and (b) the nature of disorders like autism. Misinformation fuels skepticism, particularly in an age when childhood diseases like measles and mumps have been brought under control and no one remembers the bad old days when 500 kids would die each year from measles.

I don’t have kids, so I can’t give advice. I just know that science and public health are on the side of vaccinating your kids. Seems like the right choice, folks.

Nuff said.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

The state of it.

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I imagine if you didn’t watch the president’s state of the union address and listened to NPR (aka Empire) news the next day, you might think they were talking about a speech made by a reactionary republican legislator or pundit. That’s all they had on their guest list for the two days following the address. You have to wonder why they feel these people need all this air time. Instead of wallowing in the predictable knee-jerk partisan reactions to the speech, why don’t they drill into some of the issues? Sure, they do a little “fact check” report, kind of like Politifact (and just about as superficial). But report on, say, oil and gas drilling and its implications for climate change and ultimately human survival? Not when one of their big sponsors is “think about it dot org”.

Doing too little? Seriously?Then there’s “Morning Joe” (or “Morning Blow”) on purportedly liberal/progressive MSNBC. Their foreign policy braintrust of, well, Joe Scarborough, Richard Haas, and various senior editors from Politico have been engaging in a narrative that goes something like this, in short – “W” Bush did too much, Obama does too little, and both put us in greater danger from the scourge of jihadist terrorism, which has killed nearly one person in the United States so far this year (call it none). Setting aside the obsessive focus on this rare and sensational threat, I agree with the assertion that both presidents’ foreign policies have put us in greater danger, breeding a new generation extremists, several of whom, for instance, attacked the offices of Charlie Ebdo in Paris. But the notion that Obama does too little is ludicrous. Bush and Obama basically have the same foreign policy. Obama is following Bush’s playbook from 2006-08. And yes, it is murderous and destabilizing and designed to radicalize people.

Of course, the pundit circle’s prescriptions for what we should be doing are drawn from the same volume. This week on Morning Blow they were latching onto co-host Mika Brzezinski’s father’s suggestion that we should deploy troops to the Baltic states to provide a “tripwire” against further action by Vladimir Putin. The braintrust was opining that NATO should be beefed up; more troops in Poland, etc. Again – Obama has been following the same policy as Bush, in essence. Aggressive eastward expansion of the U.S.-European trading zone and of NATO, right into Ukraine, which is as integral a part of Russian security planning as Canada and Mexico are for the U.S. Want to keep Putin from overreacting? Stop boxing the Russians in. Just saying.

The only new piece of foreign policy from Obama has been the Cuba opening, but like Boehner’s invite to Netanyahu as a way of scuttling the Iran talks, there are many ways for Congress to undermine the new policy.

Next week: Domestic policy. Stay tuned.

luv u,

jp

Political Rants

New cold war on tap.

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The full-court press is on. The Obama team has been channeling Bush/Romney for the past couple of weeks, delivering on the promise of a more aggressive foreign policy on several fronts, most ominously (in my humble opinion) in far eastern Europe, on the indefensible frontiers of U.S./European capitalism and military hegemony. Obama has announce that we will be taking part in NATO exercises in western Ukraine; roughly the equivalent of Russia or China or Iran doing the same in western Cuba, except that Russia has been attacked ruinously by foreign alliances via their western frontier twice over the last century. (The same, of course, cannot be said of us and our southern frontier.)

This is the threat to world peace?At the close of the Cold War, it was understood that expansion of NATO would be seen as provocative by Russia, but because Russia was in a weak position, their economy destroyed by massive privatization, shock therapy structural adjustment, guided by some of our Chicago-school fanatics, we felt free to ignore their concerns. That worked so long as our drunken ally Yeltsin was in command. But now that the extremely powerful Russian presidency (which we supported under Yeltsin) has been inherited by a sober ex-KGB officer, and the Russian economy has been lifted somewhat by oil revenues, they have found the confidence to voice their objections. And, of course, we’re shocked, shocked!

I’ve never been a fan of Putin (even when our government was), but if this “Russian aggression” as I’ve heard on radio and television for several weeks now, it’s not very, well, aggressive. Sure, they’re helping their allies in eastern Ukraine, now under attack from Kiev, just as we massively intervene on the side of governments and movements all over the world. Putin, for all of his foibles, at least has a definable national interest to invoke in Ukraine. What’s our excuse in Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, etc., etc.? Much more abstract, to say the least.

Why are we looking for this fight? And if we are, how can we accuse anyone else of being a threat to world peace?