We should care more about war in Ukraine
It’s happening so far away that sometimes it’s easy to forget there’s a major land war being fought in Europe. Yes, the home continent to a significant number of American ancestors is once again a battleground between the forces of good and evil, with Ukraine resisting an invasion from Russia for now over a year.
Yet Americans have followed our typical pattern when learning about atrocities committed in distant places with names we can’t pronounce. We get worked up for a little while, then lazily move on to the next distraction. Ukraine’s just some small, far away nation, we rationalize. Except Americans should care about this war, so let’s try to understand why.
First, it’s not actually small. Europe and the continental United States are similar in size, square mileage-wise, so picture a map of Europe overlaid on top of a map of the United States. With England lined up on our west coast, that would put parts of Russia and all of Ukraine roughly…right here. And if Greenwich is the easternmost part of Ukraine, the northernmost would be somewhere in the Adirondack Mountains, and this massive country would reach south to Raleigh, N.C., and west all the way to Chicago. Pretty big, right? Now, imagine that region of the United States being invaded from the north.
Within weeks New York, Albany, Philadelphia, Buffalo, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, have all been reduced to rubble. Imagine 8 million Americans fleeing those cities, seeking sanctuary in Tennessee, Kentucky, South Carolina, Georgia and Illinois, the same way 8 million Ukrainians have done throughout Eastern Europe. It’s amazing how looking at the Ukrainian tragedy through a different, but altogether human perspective clarifies the scope and scale of this war.
Last December, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a speech to Congress where he declared that America still represents something special in the eyes of the world. He spoke about Americans holding back Nazis at the Battle of the Bulge and Revolutionary War turning points such as the Battle of Saratoga. “American resolve must guarantee the future of our common freedom, the freedom of people who stand for their values,” he said, reminding us that we’re not the only nation with freedom. But that just as we paid for our freedom, nations such as Ukraine too often pay a more terrible price to protect theirs. He challenged us to live up to the myths we tell ourselves about places like Bastogne and Saratoga, and said, “Let the world see that the United States are here.”
Zelensky’s passionate speech spoke directly to why the world needs America to be the defender of freedom and democracy we always claim to be. Yet what should have been a galvanizing moment, a redoubling of our commitment to Ukraine,
was immediately attacked by Fox News, right-wing media, and the Banana Republican plague rats who support Russia and President Putin. They want Zelensky and Ukraine to surrender. Even nepo-baby Don Junior licked the boots of his Russian enablers, calling the Ukrainian president “an ungrateful international welfare queen,” and used phony, doctored photographs to somehow “prove” his case for capitulating to the invaders.
This I don’t understand. Throughout my lifetime, the modus operandi of the right-wing political/media cabal in this country has been to shower support and money on the world’s worst totalitarians, dictators, faux freedom-fighters and terrorists as long as they were fighting the Soviets/Russians. But Ukraine, an actual democracy, actually fighting Russia for its actual freedom, they should surrender?
Put aside however, this right-wing garbage that gives aid and comfort to our global enemy, because there are other reasons why you should care about the war’s outcome. Starting with that unlike every other U.S./Soviet Union/Russia proxy war we’ve fought since 1946, this one has been the most successful, effective, and even cost-effective. By some estimates, the United States will spend less than 3 percent of its military budget on an operation that has already decimated the Russian military and their ability to wage a conventional war elsewhere, without a single loss of American life. But maybe most importantly, for the first time since 1946, Americans can respect ourselves, knowing we are actually helping good guys beat actual bad guys, who pose a genuine threat to our own freedom.