(Dobbs) This Is No Time To Dilute Our Support For Ukraine
This is Ukraine’s fight, our fight, for democracy, for morality, for freedom.
Is this any time to pull back on our support for Ukraine?
Some Republicans seem to think so, and I’m sorry to say, so do some Democrats. But they are misguided. The answer to the question is an almost inarguable NO!
Not just because the Ukrainians are on a roll, repelling a Russian army that in several parts of the country outnumbers and outguns them, but because the catalogue of crimes the Russians are committing continues to grow longer and more loathsome. We cannot just stand by and give them a pass.
The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine, a panel of legal experts assembled by the United Nations, last week painted an unpalatable picture of those repugnant crimes. They went to 27 towns and interviewed more than 150 people, both victims and witnesses. They also inspected “sites of destruction, graves, places of detention and torture.”
They documented “visible signs of executions on bodies, such as hands tied behind backs, gunshot wounds to the head, and slit throats.” Wherever they went, they received “consistent accounts of torture and ill-treatment” by the Russians.
Another of commission’s findings: “Horrific allegations of sexual violence against Ukrainian communities - including children - were also found to be based in fact.”
The U.N. panel condemned Russian soldiers for confining 365 civilians, including 70 children, for four agonizingly long weeks in a village called Yahidne. They kept them in the dank basement of a local school. With no showers, no toilets, no ventilation, no light. Some of the prisoners did not come out alive.
The commission’s inescapable conclusion? “We found that war crimes have been committed in Ukraine.”
Now a personal perspective: if the Russians’ torture chambers are anything like what I saw in Tehran when revolutionaries broke into the infamous Evin Prison, or at Afghanistan’s dungeony Pul-e-Charkhi prison outside Kabul during a bogus political prisoner release, or in the subterranean caverns of Idi Amin’s deceptively named State Research Bureau during the war to oust the murderous dictator from Uganda, there is no punishment brutal enough for Vladimir Putin and his henchmen.
On top of that, after destroying countless homes and hospitals and schools and businesses— the World Bank calculates total damage in Ukraine at $345-billion so far— Russia has now doubled down in its air war, launching more missiles and weaponized drones. They no longer are attacking mainly military targets but taking out playgrounds, parks, and more homes, and pounding power plants, water supplies. and electrical grids, the infrastructure on which people’s very survival will soon depend. Ukraine is on the same latitude as Poland, Germany, the Czech Republic. I can tell you firsthand, those can be cold icy places in the wintertime. Ukraine is known for bitter winters and now, all the more bitter if people have to endure it without the critical creature comfort of heat.
And there is no sign of abatement. In fact if anything, Ukraine’s surprising strength on the battlefield has hardened Russian resolve. The leader of Chechnya yesterday posted this threat against Ukraine on social media: “Our response has been too weak. If a shell flies into our region, entire cities must be wiped off the face of the Earth so that they don’t ever think that they can fire in our direction.”
And yet, notable leaders in both political parties have signaled that they might want to put the brakes on American support for Ukraine. Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, who aspires to be Speaker next year, infamously said last week that if his party wins power in next month’s elections, there will be no more “blank check.” Criticized by some of his own colleagues, he then tried to walk that statement back, but his intent to be more selective in how we support Ukraine was clear. Just for good measure, Fox hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham have questioned our continuing contributions to Ukraine’s defense, Ingraham even saying last week that “the US military is too depleted to be helping out other countries.”
For the record, it’s not. Also for the record, the United States has given Ukraine about $18-billion in military aid. That’s not a paltry sum, but it’s about as much as the Trump Administration demanded from Congress for his “big, beautiful wall.”
Meantime on the Democratic side, President Biden got a letter yesterday from the chairwoman of the liberal Congressional Progressive Caucus in the House, co-signed by 29 progressive colleagues, “urging” Biden “to pair the military and economic support the United States has provided to Ukraine with a proactive diplomatic push, redoubling efforts to seek a realistic framework for a ceasefire.” The letter acknowledged, “We are under no illusions regarding the difficulties involved in engaging Russia,” but nevertheless it could undercut the president’s determination— supported by most members of both parties— to stand steadfast and, along with our allies, show a united front. Diplomacy can be a constructive tool but if, after all the capital he has spent on the war, it requires concessions from a cornered rat like Putin, it’s a pipe dream. Like McCarthy on the other side of the aisle, caucus chairwoman Pramila Jayapal was roundly criticized by many in her own party and walked back what she’d written, quickly withdrawing the letter from consideration.
But the dye was cast. As CNN commentator Stephen Collinson wrote yesterday, “For months, Russian President Vladimir Putin has waited and watched, hoping for a fracturing of the remarkable Washington consensus built by President Joe Biden on the need to do everything it takes to defend democracy in Ukraine. Now, at last, the first cracks may be appearing.”
We cannot let those cracks widen because if we do and our support for Ukraine is diluted, it’s a pretty sure bet that our allies will do the same, and that could make a disastrous difference in the thin margin of chance between Russia conquering Ukraine and Ukraine chasing Russia from its land.
If Ukraine ultimately loses, it will set a petrifying precedent, that a huge nation like Russia can make a smaller nation like Ukraine just disappear (or that a huge nation like China can make a smaller nation like Taiwan just disappear). And equally bad, it could put our allies in Putin’s crosshairs. Since our fate is inextricably interwoven with theirs, if he hurts our allies, he’s hurting us.
This is Ukraine’s fight, our fight, for democracy, for morality, for freedom. Cracks in our solidarity only weaken it.
Over almost five decades Greg Dobbs has been a correspondent for two television networks including ABC News, a political columnist for The Denver Post and syndicated columnist for Scripps newspapers, a moderator on Rocky Mountain PBS, and author of two books, including one about the life of a foreign correspondent called “Life in the Wrong Lane.” He has covered presidencies, politics, and the U.S. space program at home, and wars, natural disasters, and other crises around the globe, from Afghanistan to South Africa, from Iran to Egypt, from the Soviet Union to Saudi Arabia, from Nicaragua to Namibia, from Vietnam to Venezuela, from Libya to Liberia, from Panama to Poland. Dobbs has won three Emmys, the Distinguished Service Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, and as a 36-year resident of Colorado, a place in the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
Thank you! Aggression must be met forcefully and not allowed to gain even an inch from it. Peace at any cost only brings more war. History has been a cruel teacher.
Yes, if Putin is allowed victory he will be emboldened to do other terrible deeds. He can not be allowed to prevail in this invasion. Then there is the World Court to consider. Justice has to come into the picture someplace.