What Happened to Diplomacy and the Rule of Law?
Last week, I talked to Judge Napolitano about the Russia-Ukraine War, the Trump administration’s designs on Venezuela, and the rule of law in America.
A point I could have made more clearly involves casualty figures in the Russia-Ukraine War. There are no official figures that are trustworthy; each side is exaggerating the casualties of the other, which is unsurprising, since the first casualty of war is truth.
Figures that I’ve seen suggest that Ukraine has suffered over 100,000 killed and another 400,000 wounded/missing/captured. Russian figures may be double those of Ukraine but I honestly don’t know. My guess is that Russian casualty figures are higher because they have been on the offensive more and Ukrainian defenses have generally been robust and the troops increasingly skilled. Added to these battlefield casualties are the more than 30,000 Ukrainian citizens killed in the war, plus another six to seven million Ukrainians who have fled the country.
My point here isn’t to celebrate one side as “winning” or “losing.” To my mind, both sides are losing as they wage this devastating war, a war that will enter its fourth year next February. While some commentators see this war as a necessary one for Ukraine, a war for high ideals like democracy and freedom, I see a country that has lost roughly 20% of its territory, a country that suffers because the war is being fought largely on Ukrainian land, a country where roughly 7 in 10 people seek an end to this costly struggle.
A common narrative in the West is that Putin must not be allowed to profit from war, and if he does, the Russian military will next be on the march against NATO countries. This narrative suggests war and more war until either Putin is defeated or Ukraine collapses under the strain.
I would prefer to see negotiations to end the killing, the suffering, and the destruction, allowing Ukraine to recover, even if Ukraine must give up its desire to join NATO. I remain concerned that this war could expand further, as lengthy wars tend to do, becoming a wider regional war that could conceivably escalate toward nuclear weapons.
Bracing Views 
From Seven Days in May, Sen. Ray Clark to General James Mattoon Scott: “I presume, General, that an alternative to the treaty that would meet with your approval would be continuing to build bombs, bigger bombs, better bombs, more bombs. Until at some given instant, a trigger-happy idiot presses the button and we all go down the drain waving the American flag.”
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The proof of how low diplomacy has fallen is that a young son-in-law of the president is chosen for the role in partnership with a property developer friend of the president. There has never been a brighter day for billionaires.
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I see the Ukraine war as a boon to the U.S. “DEATH” INDUSTRY for the billions in profits it has and is still generating; NOT in the name of WAR; but in the game of unbridled GREED! I also see that the term “Negotiation” so completely fallen out of fashion, that I fear it may be soon be removed from our dictionaries.
I see the Pentagon scurrying to find out WHERE TO BOMB NEXT, should the Ukraine idiocy die down and corporate profits of the DEATH INDUSTRY (along with their campaign contributions) begin to suffer. Gotta’ keep the cash flowing to the billionaires no matter what the HUMAN costs are.
I also see the complete and total failure of the American two-party system, which is essentially left and right wings of the same party (UNI-PARTY?); both of which are dedicated to GREED and feeding billionaires at the expense of its American working class citizens who have exactly ZERO influence in the internal workings of our government.
WANT TO WORK TOWARD FIXING THINGS?
Get BIG MONEY the hell out of politics.
Reverse the “Citizens United” SCOTUS decision AND severely LIMIT campaign contributions; especially those from foreign controlled PAC’s.
Subsidize (for a while) NEW Political Parties with FRESH IDEAS and messages that appeal to the majority of American citizens.
Institute Ranked Choice Voting as the preferred method of choosing our political representatives. Our present Two-Party system depends on HATE to generate ever larger campaign contributions. Ranked choice voting tends to MINIMIZE this unfortunate aspect of our electoral process; because with this system, every candidate ALSO want to be your SECOND CHOICE.
Jerry King
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