I want to emphasize that in my very long career I had substantial experience implementing US foreign policy in a number of developing countries with frail democracies. And as a senior staffer for the US Congress I had major policy analysis experience. And as a writer I have done several nonfiction books, many hundreds of articles and many opeds in newspapers on diverse subjects. So, I have a background, besides work on the pandemic, that enables me to make an original policy contribution to the current coverage of the Russian war on Ukraine. There is no justification whatsoever for the war crimes as attacks on civilians used by Putin to destroy Ukraine. I have remove several comments that I deemed intellectually deficient and factually wrong.
To respond to the other comments, the situation is much more complex than stated in the MSM (big surprise!), and yes, the US government almost undoubtedly has its grubby fingers involved in Ukraine. (Who would have thought?) But that doesn't change the fact that ordinary people are suffering horribly, both Russian and Ukrainian. It seems to reflect a lack of empathy to forget this. One person mentions MCM, and I can hardly believe the lack of empathy MCM has shown in this regard. As a first generation Ukrainian, the cruelty and one-sided-ness of a post of his, suggesting that the presence of a Nazi element in Ukraine justified the suffering of ordinary people, sickened me. We have those elements here, probably all the countries of Europe do. Proportionally it appears that Ukraine has no more than all of our Western democracies. I think that the emerging totalitarian threat in this country gives a clue of what the fight on the ground is about for Ukrainians, except for them there is no room for self-delusion.
I thank you, Joel, for your compassionate perspective regarding people on the ground. I just hope that, with reparations, the fact that the Russian population was also callously victimized by its leaders (who are, after all, not all that different from ours) will not be ignored.
This article has been published on a major website that I strongly recommend to my readers for all that it publishes:
https://www.americaoutloud.com/how-to-use-russian-wealth-for-restoring-ukraine/
Dear subscribers and readers,
I want to emphasize that in my very long career I had substantial experience implementing US foreign policy in a number of developing countries with frail democracies. And as a senior staffer for the US Congress I had major policy analysis experience. And as a writer I have done several nonfiction books, many hundreds of articles and many opeds in newspapers on diverse subjects. So, I have a background, besides work on the pandemic, that enables me to make an original policy contribution to the current coverage of the Russian war on Ukraine. There is no justification whatsoever for the war crimes as attacks on civilians used by Putin to destroy Ukraine. I have remove several comments that I deemed intellectually deficient and factually wrong.
To respond to the other comments, the situation is much more complex than stated in the MSM (big surprise!), and yes, the US government almost undoubtedly has its grubby fingers involved in Ukraine. (Who would have thought?) But that doesn't change the fact that ordinary people are suffering horribly, both Russian and Ukrainian. It seems to reflect a lack of empathy to forget this. One person mentions MCM, and I can hardly believe the lack of empathy MCM has shown in this regard. As a first generation Ukrainian, the cruelty and one-sided-ness of a post of his, suggesting that the presence of a Nazi element in Ukraine justified the suffering of ordinary people, sickened me. We have those elements here, probably all the countries of Europe do. Proportionally it appears that Ukraine has no more than all of our Western democracies. I think that the emerging totalitarian threat in this country gives a clue of what the fight on the ground is about for Ukrainians, except for them there is no room for self-delusion.
I thank you, Joel, for your compassionate perspective regarding people on the ground. I just hope that, with reparations, the fact that the Russian population was also callously victimized by its leaders (who are, after all, not all that different from ours) will not be ignored.
If at some time Putin is no longer in charge, then I think there would much financial aid to Russians once the war is over.