- The Russian assault on the Ukraine is morally wrong, full stop. Ukrainians do not in the least deserve what Russia is doing to them as we speak. Indeed, they have not deserved what has been done to them by multiple actors since (and including) the ouster of Yanukovych in 2014. I stand firmly with Metropolitan Onufriy of Kiev, and support and endorse his call upon President Vladimir Putin for an immediate cessation of violence.
- This war was entirely preventable from multiple sides. It is an expression of a long-standing failure of diplomacy between NATO countries and Russia, going back at least to 2008, possibly even to 2004. Given what happened to Yugoslavia five years prior to that, Russian distrust of NATO is entirely legitimate and warranted.
- It is also an expression of long-standing failure of peace-keeping in afflicted areas like the Donetsk Basin. The people in the Donetsk Basin have been suffering mortar attacks and wanton destruction of their schools, hospitals and homes for the past eight years, and the culprits of this waste of human life and limb have been overwhelmingly the Ukrainian Army.
- The long ignorance of people for the humanitarian suffering in Donbass, over the past eight years, is intolerable. The people who are only now discovering that being mortared non-stop by a hostile army from across a line of control is bad, have some deep soul-searching to do.
- Reiterate point 4, a fortiori, for Yemen, Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia. Remember the commandment: Thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-English speaking countries, as to those that occur in English speaking countries.
May peace and justice prevail. May God have mercy upon the Ukraine. May God have mercy upon the Donbass. May God have mercy upon Russia. And may God have mercy upon us all.
Thanks for this.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of writing something along the same lines, but you've said most of what I would have wanted to say, and better than I could.