{"id":520,"date":"2015-02-06T23:00:23","date_gmt":"2015-02-06T23:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=520"},"modified":"2015-02-06T23:03:38","modified_gmt":"2015-02-06T23:03:38","slug":"sending-weapons-for-ukraine-to-kill-its-own-people-helps-free-people-to-defend-themselves-and-other-drivel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2015\/02\/sending-weapons-for-ukraine-to-kill-its-own-people-helps-free-people-to-defend-themselves-and-other-drivel.html","title":{"rendered":"Sending weapons for Ukraine to kill its own people helps “free people to defend themselves”, and other drivel"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dans un \u00e9tat bien ordonn\u00e9, la libert\u00e9 de la presse doit \u00eatre illimit\u00e9e pour les \u00e9crivains qui surveillent les fonctionnaires publics.<\/em><\/p>\n

In a well-ordered state, freedom of the press must be unlimited for writers who monitor public officials.<\/p>\n

Jean-Paul Marat<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Good news.\u00a0One of my books, priced at Amazon<\/a>, is available for free as a paper on Academia.edu. You can view it here<\/a>, presenting a full compilation of my most significant reviews and essays responding to the theses on the political and social effects of decisive emerging technologies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I would\u00a0like to address the calls among some US political elements to increase US support to the government in Ukraine, specifically something Senator John McCain said.<\/p>\n

@SenJohnMcCain<\/a> Wow, McCain supports sending US weapons, not US troops, to a foreign country. #NobelPeacePrize<\/a> for you.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Harry J. Bentham (@hjbentham) February 6, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

First, how does sending armaments to any government\u00a0amount to helping\u00a0“free people to defend themselves”? Does McCain not realize that the separatists are the rebel faction on the ground in Ukraine? The ones who “defend themselves” are not government troopers and tanks deployed to Donetsk and Luhansk, but the general population who took up arms against the government. It seems that McCain defines self-defense as dropping bombs on\u00a0anyone he dislikes without provocation, including unarmed civilians. This might help explain why his vision of a democratic\u00a0uprising in Syria consisted of US bombs falling from the sky on undefended Syrian cities. Another criticism I have of McCain’s arguments is that sending US weapons to Ukraine is clearly not enough to actually change the balance. It didn’t make any difference in Iraq. As a military man and someone who argues for greater US involvement in Iraq rather than mere training and ammunition, McCain already knows just sending US weapons to Ukraine isn’t going to work. All sending US weapons to Ukraine will do is allow McCain to argue\u00a0that this option has been exhausted\u00a0and, therefore, US troops should be sent to the country to quell the uprising.<\/p>\n

McCain isn’t a war hero, but a coward\u00a0with no faith in the US military. Perhaps out his self-loathing\u00a0after\u00a0he surrendered\u00a0in Vietnam,\u00a0or because he was\u00a0guilty of killing\u00a0his fellow servicemen\u00a0in the USS Forrestal Fire,\u00a0McCain tries to belie\u00a0his\u00a0madness\u00a0and\u00a0hatred of other US veterans behind a curtain of false patriotism. He would like to mislead as many US soldiers to their deaths, to\u00a0get them to share in his twisted misery, as he can. Having irrationally and obsessively advocated keeping US troops in Iraq forever, and consistently advocating\u00a0the US should invade\u00a0at least one country a year (including Iraq again),\u00a0McCain seems\u00a0determined to witness\u00a0as many better men than him\u00a0getting\u00a0their limbs blown off as possible (as he did on the USS Forrestal). If he had been given the chance to be President, there can be little doubt that the US would have invaded country after country and have been fending off numerous Vietnam-type insurgencies all over the world.<\/p>\n

It is curious to observe\u00a0that McCain’s political and military biography\u00a0curiously resembles Hitler’s: celebrated by his fellow soldiers, both men were taken away from their comrades for a long period during their military service despite their protests, and both later\u00a0become obsessives spending the rest of their lives trying start the war over again, as if trying to compensate for their earlier incapacity and the sense of powerlessness it brought them.<\/p>\n

Soon, I will have a new viewpoint article published as part of my column at\u00a0Press TV<\/a>. I won’t quote from the article right now, but my criticism in the article is aimed at media sources for their untenable and dangerous “what to do” suggestions about the Conflict in Ukraine. The most disturbing of such suggestions that I have encountered is that Crimea should be restored to Ukraine’s control. Because Russia considers Crimea to be part of its territory, I find it very troubling that anyone could lobby for Crimea to be blockaded, but that is what is happening. I was even disturbed to find one suggestion at the private intelligence firm Stratfor<\/a> that Russia’s ferries and planned bridge to Crimea could\u00a0be cut off by military attack in order to isolate and starve peninsula into submission.<\/p>\n

In view of the above, I feel that\u00a0tensions over Ukraine, and Crimea in particular, could produce armed conflict between the US and its allies and Russia. The refusal to acknowledge Russia’s interpretation of its borders puts the entire world on the edge of nuclear war. If this were a contest with a weaker country such as Iraq, the US could afford to dismiss Iraq’s territorial claims, acting in a condescending manner\u00a0and announcing sanctions. Unfortunately, in\u00a0this case, what the US has\u00a0is a clumsy and unavailing policy\u00a0that can only hope to provoke heavy retaliation by Russia. Sanctions and media condemnation may work to undermine Russian economic and diplomatic standing, but no Russian government will relinquish control of Crimea and any attempt to force that outcome will only be met with a crushing Russian military response, using nuclear weapons if necessary to protect a peninsula that\u00a0the Russians consider to be the heart of their “motherland”\u00a0while US leaders continue to believe\u00a0it is\u00a0part of Ukraine and a potential NATO naval port.<\/p>\n

To the melancholy pundits and politicians who want to re-enact world wars over #Ukraine<\/a> events: kill yourselves rather than the rest of us. \u2014 Harry J. Bentham (@hjbentham) February 4, 2015<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I have no intention to die, or encourage others to die, for what Ukraine’s crazy leaders see as\u00a0their national honor. National honor isn’t worth blood. The lesson of World War One and Two wasn’t that vulnerable states like Ukraine should be defended in the name of zealous nationalistic feelings. It was that they shouldn’t be defended, and that their integrity is worth nothing. When people visit war graves, they should think not of how those men died for our “freedoms” or “nations” but how they died for politicians long dead and backward concepts of loyalty\u00a0that are no longer shared by society or compatible with modern humanitarian doctrine.<\/p>\n

Wars are pointless and cowardly, nations are fictitious constructs, and the belief\u00a0that heroes emerge from armed conflicts between so-called nations\u00a0is a fraudulent one.<\/p>\n

\n

By\u00a0Harry J. Bentham<\/a><\/p>\n

\"HJB<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dans un \u00e9tat bien ordonn\u00e9, la libert\u00e9 de la presse doit \u00eatre illimit\u00e9e pour les \u00e9crivains qui surveillent les fonctionnaires publics. In a well-ordered state, freedom of the press must be unlimited for writers who monitor public officials. 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