No time to be sowing seeds of discord

We feel pretty good about ourselves.  We've just about made it through October without turning on the heat.  Some days have almost been balmy but nights are wet and cold and the house feels like an ice box.  Curling up close together in bed is the best part of the evening.

Daina still can't resist checking her phone for the latest news on Ukraine.  I try to stop myself from checking the Congressional forecasts on 538.  I've watched the Democrats chances of holding the Senate slip in the past few weeks, largely because it seems Democrats can't get on the same page.

The latest blunder was the Congressional Progressive Caucus sending a letter to the White House that urged Biden to seek a negotiated settlement in Ukraine.  I'm not sure where they are coming form.  I hope it is just listening to Chris Hedges, who has been a vocal critic of US involvement in Ukraine.  Otherwise, they just look like Putin's useful idiots.

Ever since Hedges left CNN he has been one of the most critical voices of the military industrial complex.  I can sympathize with him to some degree.  The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were really nothing more than a money laundering operation for defense contractors.  He seems to believe the same thing is going on in Ukraine, as the US has now spent close to $70 billion in support of Ukraine's defense effort since the start of the war in February.

As I was telling one of my skeptical friends on facebook, the US and NATO have every right to defend Ukraine.  However, given our recent history of military incursions I can understand why persons are skeptical.  I suppose if I was living in the US, I would be too.

But, I am in Lithuania and I've come to see the situation from the Eastern European perspective, which is why I was surprised to see Andrew Bacevich supporting Hedges' position.  His parents immigrated to America from Lithuania during WWII.  They were not only fleeing the German invasion but also the subsequent Soviet invasion.  He should know as well as anyone the history of Russian aggression in this region.  Yet, he believes the US is out of its realm in Ukraine.  

His early response in May seemed kind of guarded.  He chastised Russia for its "criminal act" and believed the US had the right to aid Ukraine but also believed the issue of territorial integrity will never be settled in the region.  He's afraid we will just become entangled in another long war with no foreseeable endgame.  Maybe so, but if we allow Putin to continue to make land grabs there will be no end to confrontations in Eastern Europe.  Worse, we may end up encouraging other countries to do the same.

There was the infamous red line that Obama drew in Syria. Biden has to be careful not to make the same mistake in Ukraine.  Russia has already crossed the line in bombing civilian targets throughout the country, but now there is the danger that they will use a dirty bomb or tactical nuclear warhead.  Moscow being Moscow, its talking heads made it sound like Ukraine was developing a dirty bomb, recently submitting their "findings" to the UN.  Russia likes to provide cover like this for its actions.

I say this because we have seen a massive evacuation effort in Kherson, which suggests that Russia has something very dirty up its sleeve.  Putin knows he will no longer be able to hold onto the region.  Ukrainian forces continue to make gains weekly.  If Russia can't have Kherson then no one can and I can easily see Putin rendering the city and much of the region uninhabitable with a nuclear explosion of some kind.  Kherson would become a no man's land like Chernobyl, and Moscow would blame Ukraine for it.

We've already seen this on a smaller scale with the land mines Russian forces have left behind in the towns they were forced to evacuate in the Chernihiv, Sumy and Kharkiv oblasts.  The husband of one of the women we were sponsoring this past Spring lost his foot on one of these land mines in clearing the Chernihiv region.  Deep down Russia knows it is losing the war but it has to leave these bitter reminders behind to let everyone know it won't go quietly.

No one wants a protracted war but then this war has been going on since 2014 when Russia first invaded Ukraine, annexed Crimea and fomented a civil war in the Donbas region, all because it was unable to hold onto power in Kjiv under the disgraced leadership of Viktor Yanukovich.  

Many think this was a confrontation the US instigated by supporting the Euromaidan uprising that took place over the winter of 2013 and 2014, but this was a confrontation that dated back to Ukrainian independence following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.  The events of 2014 were just the latest chapter.  

You had high profile Americans like Oliver Stone supporting Yanukovich and Putin, offering what was essentially a reverse spin on the situation.  He interviewed both of these leaders and put out a documentary in 2016 entitled Ukraine on Fire, essentially presenting the United States as the aggressor in the conflict with Putin forced to defend Russian-speaking citizens in Ukraine.  Here it is for those of you who have the stomach to watch it.  Since then Stone was forced to recapitulate to some degree, but still views Putin in much the same way he did Stalin as a man backed into a corner.

This is the problem that comes with continuing to view the world through the lens of the Cold War.  For many on the Left, the Soviet Union represented a necessary counterweight to US imperial ambitions, seeming to discount the imperial ambitions of the USSR.  These persons still believed that Moscow represented some kind of socialist ideal lacking in the West, which had become a consumer-driven capitalist society with an insatiable greed for new markets.  In their addled minds, Russia was the heir to this socialist vision, even if Moscow was run like a mafia family.  It appears that it is very hard to shake this view among the liberal academic elite.

Sadly, this is where the Congressional Progressive Caucus seems to draw most of its arguments when it comes to Ukraine.  At least US Rep. Jayapal was smart enough to withdraw the letter after suffering a major backlash from fellow Democrats.  She blamed it on an aide releasing the letter without proper vetting, but we know where she and fellow progressives in Congress stand on the issue and that they will seek a more opportune time to raise it once again.

This is not the time to give Republicans anymore firepower in tight Congressional races across the country.  They too are divided on Ukraine but will gladly use it as a wedge issue to split Democratic support in key states and districts.  Democrats cannot afford to lose both chambers of Congress at a time like this.  It's going to be a rough winter but if we stick together we can make it through it.