Monday, November 7, 2022

Connecticut's congress members: all in for war

     By Reginald Johnson

  

         Commentary

  

   (I recently read a nice summary in the Connecticut Examiner presenting statements by all the candidates running for Congress in Connecticut on where they stand on the Ukraine War. I would highly recommend that everybody take a look at this article if you’re concerned about this war and the need for peace. It is at https://ctexaminer.com/2022/10/26/connecticuts-candidates-for-congress-weigh-in-on-continued-aid-for-ukraine/


  If you’d like to see the Ukraine War war brought to an end as I do, you’ll be distressed to learn that all the Democratic Party incumbents in the state’s five congressional districts back the war wholeheartedly.

 They have no problems with the vast sums of money being expended to allegedly defend Ukraine. And they stand foursquare for continuing the conflict, despite the fact that if it goes on much longer nuclear weapons could be used and that would be a possible world-ending event. There’s no mention by any of them of the need for peace talks to end the war and stop the slaughter.

 One of the hawks is one-time liberal Rosa DeLauro, the incumbent Congresswoman from the Third Congressional District. DeLauro said she’s proud of chairing of the House Appropriations Committee which steered $66 billion in “emergency funding” (much of that for lethal weaponry)  “to support the Ukrainian people and defend global democracy in the wake of Russia’s unprovoked and malicious attack.”

 She added, “We will continue demonstrating to the Ukrainian people that in the face of ongoing Russian aggression we will not let them down.”

  Jim Himes, the incumbent congress member from the Fourth Congressional District, sounded a similar theme. He said that as a member of the House Intelligence Committee he and others met with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and other top Ukrainian officials “to reassure them of continued US military and nonmilitary aid. Ukraine is fighting our and the world’s fight for democracy, the rule of law and basic human decency.”

  DeLauro and Himes make it sound like the US involvement in Ukraine is based on the idea that Russia is similar to Nazi Germany in 1939 and the Russians, if allowed to take Ukraine, will sweep over Europe crushing all the democracies and then ultimately threatening the United States.

 This is patently absurd. The fact of the matter is that Russia was in large part provoked into launching the invasion of Ukraine because of the eastward advance of the Western military alliance known as NATO, in violation of a pledge by US leaders to former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1991 that that exact same thing would never take place; by the violation of the Minsk peace accords by the present Ukrainian regime which saw Ukrainian forces attack the ethnic Russian provinces in the eastern part of Ukraine, states which were supposed to be given autonomy and self-governance under the agreement; and the continued demand by the US that Ukraine be allowed to join NATO, something which the Russians have opposed --- and understandably so --- for years.  

  The Russians saw a security threat developing in Ukraine and they took action to stop it --- just the way the US took action 60 years ago when the Soviet Union put missiles into Cuba only 90 miles from our shores.

 The claims by the incumbent House members that America is defending democracy in Ukraine are bogus. The Zelensky regime has shut down newspapers, locked up dissidents and officially recognizes a holiday for a World War II Nazi collaborator who helped the Germans carry out pogroms against Ukrainian Jews. Democracy??

 The other Democrats in Congress in Connecticut, Jahana Hayes in the Fifth District, John Larson in the First District and Joe Courtney in the Second District also took hard-line positions in supporting Ukraine.

  Republican challengers were hardly any better in their responses to the survey. One or two did take issue with the high cost of the war to the United States --- not in human terms, of course --- but in terms of the high dollar amounts.

 The only candidates in the Examiner survey that took progressive positions on the war were two Green Party candidates, Mary Sanders, running in the First District against Larson and Justin Pagliano, running in the Third District against DeLauro. Another good anti-war candidate running is Dr. Amy Chai of New Haven who is challenging DeLauro.

  Sanders had the best position of all. She said in part, “The US government has supported the expansion of NATO east to the border of Russia, steering the region into war in order to feed the military-industrial intelligence complex like they have done so many times before.

  “I would work for an immediate cease-fire and relief for the victims while stopping the export of arms to Ukraine. Humanitarian and economic development is needed not more weapons! I support a UN Security Council guarantee of neutrality and security for Ukraine and a UN mediated solution to the questions of the Donbass and Crimea with its warm water port Sebastopol,” Sanders said.

  While the Green Party and independent candidates probably won’t get much support in the election, they deserve a lot of credit for taking principled and humanitarian positions on this disastrous war which has already cost so much and threatens to spark a worldwide catastrophe.

  Thank you to those candidates and shame on the Democrats and Republicans for their belligerent and dangerous views.

 

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