The Ukrainian people are truly suffering and deserve our support with humanitarian assistance, but the way to stop their suffering is to bring a negotiated peace quickly rather than trying to prolong the war with continued arms shipments. I look upon the war as a domestic situation in which we have become involved. The trouble is that this domestic situation involves another man, as it were. That other man is Uncle Sam, so we really should butt out. 

We say that we are defending democracy, but Ukraine is hardly a model democracy and we overturned their democratically elected leader in 2014 because we didn’t like the results. Funny how we hear talk of democracy and “our democracy” when the results please the elites that rule us but when things don’t go their way it’s because of Russian interference, insurrectionists, and white supremacy, yada, yada, yada. Oh, and voter suppression! Who can possibly take these people seriously?

We have a dangerous commander-in-chief whose loose lips could get the whole world in a nuclear war. We need to de-escalate and save us a lot of death and needless suffering. We need to acknowledge our meddling in Ukrainian affairs, using the corruption in the country to enrich people such as Hunter and Joe Biden. We have repeatedly turned a deaf ear to Russian concerns starting soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union by expanding NATO upon the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. I always thought that was a terrible move. It sure didn’t inspire trust and now we are seeing the outworking of a flawed decision.

Instead of forging a closer relationship with Russia after the Cold War we have pushed her into the arms of China, our chief adversary. Our entire foreign policy establishment needs a complete overhaul in both personnel and philosophy. I’m ready to let Europe take care of Europe. If they want NATO, they can support it and fight for it. 

We need to pay more attention to our own house before we try to get everybody else’s house in order. We are being invaded at our southern border and democracy is being threatened here in the U.S. but we are being asked to ignore that and focus on the border and democracy of another country. As someone once said, “My God, this man cannot remain in power.”

David Parker

Sylva