(The Connecticut Post published the following op-ed on Sept 25 which countered a number of false claims made by Senator Richard Blumenthal in an article he wrote justifying continued aid for the war in Ukraine,)
I have to take issue with a number of
comments made by US Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn in his recent op-ed in the
Connecticut Post entitled “Zelenskyy doesn’t want or need our troops. But he
deeply and desperately needs the tools to win.”
Blumenthal justifies
the United States continuing to send billions of dollars to help Ukraine in its
war with Russia by making the sweeping claim that if Russia is allowed to
defeat Ukraine, Russian leader Vladimir Putin will be emboldened to invade
other countries and then take over Europe.
“If Putin wins in
Ukraine, he’ll roll forward against other nations --- NATO allies that we have
a treaty obligation to defend with troops on the ground. Ukraine is at the tip
of the spear fighting our fight for independence and freedom,” Blumenthal wrote.
But the view that
Russia is on a march of aggression is based on the idea that Russia invaded
Ukraine without any provocation and if given a chance, Putin will do the same
thing against other countries.
The fact is that the
United States together with its NATO allies did provoke Russia into this
invasion. There were two key provocations.
First, the United
States instigated a coup in 2014 against the constitutionally-elected and
pro-Russian government in Ukraine led by Viktor Yanukovych. The new regime adopted
a belligerent anti-Russian attitude and demanded that all people in Ukraine,
including people in the heavily ethnic Russian area in the East, speak the
Ukrainian language. A rebellion erupted in the East and the government, using
United States military aid, waged a bloody campaign against residents of the
area known as Donbas, which is on the Russian border.
Second, the United
States reneged on its promise made to Russian leaders back in the early 1990s
that NATO would not be enlarged by granting membership to Eastern European
countries which had been part of the old Soviet bloc. The Russians warned that
they saw expansion of NATO as a security threat, with their nation becoming
encircled.
Despite Russian
objections, the West went ahead and added all the Soviet bloc nations into NATO,
except for Ukraine. Russian officials and others urged that at least Ukraine should
stay neutral, in order to avoid war. Nonetheless, US and Ukrainian leaders pushed
the idea of adding Ukraine to NATO, further heightening tensions with Russia.
Putin said at the
time of the invasion that the expansion of NATO was the reason for Russia’s decision
to invade.
Sen. Blumenthal also makes the strange comment in his
article that America was helping Ukraine protect “freedom.” But the present
Ukrainian government has shut down opposition newspapers, closed Russian
orthodox churches and locked up political dissenters. These actions do not
comport with a free society.
Finally, Sen.
Blumenthal makes the outrageous statement that Americans “should be satisfied
that we’re getting our money’s worth on our Ukraine investment” because we’ve
spent “less than 3 percent” of our military budget in helping Ukraine to
“degrade” Russia’s military.
Actually, the roughly
3 percent figure comes to a very substantial amount. The US has given upwards
of $140 billion in aid to Ukraine, much of it being military hardware. That money could have been better spent on
funding human needs here at home --- like building affordable housing, improving
health care and revitalizing underfunded local public school systems, such as the
one in Bridgeport.
Instead of continuing
to support a highly destructive and deadly war in Ukraine (hundreds of
thousands of people have died) Senator Blumenthal should get behind peace
efforts to bring this terrible conflict to a close.
(Reginald Johnson is a free-lance writer in Bridgeport)
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