⚠️ WARNING - Please note this piece contains images that some may find deeply disturbing. I thought long and hard before including them. However, I made the judgement, it is important they be included. War is barbaric and we should not avert our eyes from the truth of the suffering of the innocent ⚠️
So here’s the thing. Ukrainian losses even at the lowest estimates are 153,000. To date, 12,654 have been verified by the UN to be civilian casualties. The true total though is likely to be considerably higher.
Just pause to think about this for a moment. I have spoken up for Ukraine since the day Russia illegally invaded their country. Since that invasion, the International Criminal Court has determined that Vladimir Putin is guilty of war crimes.
Let’s not dress this up. Women and young girls were raped and sexually abused by conscripts and criminals released from Russian prisons to fight on the front line. Young men and boys had their hands tied behind their backs and were shot in the back of the head.
The bodies were bulldozed into shallow graves while children were kidnapped and shipped to Russia. Putin held fake elections in occupied territories where voters were forced to vote for Russian candidates at gunpoint.
America cheered when Putin was indicted as a war criminal. Elected representatives from BOTH sides of the aisle visited the sites of the body pits, covering their nose and mouths at the smell from rotting exhumed bodies of innocent Ukrainian civilians. They even toured the basements where the crimes had been committed.
Senior Republicans went on photo op trips to be photographed shaking hands with the same President they are now calling a dictator who started the war.
Zelenskyy, received a standing ovation from those self same Republicans when he addressed a joint session of Congress. They gladly received gifts of trinkets from the battlefield to display proudly in their offices.
There was quiet celebration that for less than 1% of the DOD budget, the Ukrainian military had severely compromised the operational capabilities of America’s greatest historical enemy, without a single American boot on the ground.
So what changed? One simple word, MAGA. Trump knew he could convince his cult to go after Zelenskyy just like they were going after immigrants. He was the ‘other’ they were programmed to attack. MAGA did what they do best, they rolled out conspiracy theories about yachts, child trafficking and corruption. As ever, they wrapped grains of truth about Ukrainian general corruption and human trafficking, to create a narrative for the uneducated, to mobilize them to object to supporting Ukraine.
It became the hard right mantra to hate Ukraine as much as they hated immigrants. They used Obama’s reneging on the Budapest Memorandum as permission to abandon a country whose soldiers had died alongside their own in Iraq.
Had it been left to MAGA, Ukraine would have been fed into the wood chipper 6 months before Trump was even elected.
While I vigorously disagree with their deliberate campaign to starve Ukraine of military aid, what really sickens me is the number of Americans who are now turning to social media, to literally gloat that Ukrainians should be murdered by a war criminal they have now adopted as a hero figure.
At what point did humanity leave the room in America? Don’t answer that. The same day a convicted criminal and adjudicated rapist took up residence in the White House.
The whole premise of the MAGA argument is ‘not one more cent to Ukraine’ when 70% of the aid is being paid to American workers in factories across the country, who are manufacturing the shells and military equipment being sent to Ukraine. On equipment, the aid is not being shipped as pallets of cash, it’s being delivered in the form of obsolete kit, subsequently replaced by the newly manufactured equipment.
The biggest economic beneficiary of the Ukraine war is the UNITED STATES.
Consider this, the total aid provided to date, represents 0.0425% of the cost of the new tax cuts Trump wants to hand to the likes of Elon Musk. A Man who is as we speak, slashing welfare benefits so many MAGA voters rely on.
These people are quite literally cheering while punching themselves in the face on the road to the cheap labor pool.
Powerful article. Tough photos. But if they have to live it, we can witness it. Courageous work.
Humanity left the room when DJT was re-elected by a part of the electorate was fed and Big Lie and bought it hook, line & sinker. The feeding was bought & paid for by Putin, with a little help from Bebee. Remember our lack of humanity is spread all over the Middle East too. We have a long, difficult recovery to look forward to when we finally get the gumtion to stand up for what we believe in as a nation.