The Mad Rush To War

Muddling The Way To War

Eric S. Margolis

While the fighting goes on, the conflict in Ukraine is   increasingly dangerous.  Defeat in Ukraine would fatally undermine the Russian Federation which went to war to prevent NATO/US from taking over Ukraine, then breaking up what’s left of Russia. That is Washington’s ambition before it turns on China.

This is playing with nuclear fire.  The prime goal of the US should be to end the Ukraine conflict and stop pouring weapons and encouragement into Ukraine.  But a wounded nation – particularly a past or former enemy – is too much of a target to ignore.  Ukrainians must re-learn co-existence with Russia, like Finns.

They must end their conflict before the rupture of Ukraine’s vital exports of wheat, other key grains, uranium and metals sends world trade into a tailspin.  Middle East stability alone depends on US-subsidized Ukrainian wheat exports.

What if the hard men in Moscow get fed up watching hundreds of millions worth of US and British arms pour across the Polish-Ukraine border?  Sound military sense suggests Russia should attack these supply lines, depots and railroads.

Good statecraft demands that Washington move mountains to settle the conflict in Ukraine in which it has no vital national interest but faces nuclear peril.  But the Ukraine civil war is a political godsend for the Biden administration which has lost much of its voter support due to charges it is weak and timid.  A Russian defeat in Ukraine would nicely compensate for the humiliating US defeat in Afghanistan for which Biden is blamed though it was mainly Donald Trump who lit the fuse of that disaster.

Unfortunately, Ukraine has become what little Belgium was in 1914, a highly emotional issue propelling the mad rush to war.  Westerners feel the sorrow of Ukrainians while totally ignoring the terrors they inflicted on Gaza, Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Yemenis, Somalis and Libyans.  Our media wails for Ukrainians while ignoring the waves of B-52 heavy bombers carpet bombing Afghan villages.