It is unbearable to read, but necessary to face: “Russian troops raped and tortured children in Ukraine, U.N. panel says.” (Article here.) Is it any wonder that Ukrainians want to repel this evil invasion? And that they don’t want to leave any of their people to the mercy of such invaders and occupiers?
Every day, Russian propagandists call the Ukrainians “Nazis.” So do their echoers in the West. This is what psychologists call, I believe, “projection.”
• Also unbearable to read — unbearable to watch — but necessary to face: “Caught on Camera, Traced by Phone: The Russian Military Unit That Killed Dozens in Bucha” (here). There is no denying the nature of Russian forces in Ukraine — except to the extent that there are always people who deny war crimes and crimes against humanity, from the Holocaust to individual massacres.
• Earlier this year, some 1,200 people gathered in the Mariupol theater, to take refuge from Russian bombing. These included children, of course. A large sign indicating children was “daubed in Russian in front of the theatre,” as the BBC says. Then the Russians bombed the theater. “Ukrainian authorities believe 300 people were killed but an AP investigation said the number was closer to 600. Many of the bodies were found in the basement.”
Now, of course, the Russians are destroying what remained of the theater (as the above-linked BBC report says). Why? The better to cover up war crimes, clearly.
• The speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, invited the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky, to speak to Congress. The timing was important. Republicans will assume control of the House in about ten days.
Would a Republican speaker — presumably Kevin McCarthy — invite Zelensky to address Congress? Would he travel to Kyiv, in a show of support, as Pelosi did? Or would he fear to displease his “base”?
For some of us, these are painful questions to ask.
• Another question, painful or not: If the U.S. president were a Republican, instead of a Democrat, what effect would that have on opinion concerning Ukraine? If the president were a non-Trumpy, Ukraine-supporting Republican, what effect would that have? Would the Right be friendlier to Zelensky and the Ukrainian cause? Would the Left be less so?
We are a nation of tribes, red and blue. (There may be a few pastels thrown in there as well.)
• In her letter to Zelensky, inviting him to speak to Congress, Pelosi said, “The fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy itself.” Some Americans believe that, some Americans don’t. That is one of our country’s most severe divisions.
Pelosi also said, “America and the world are in awe of the heroism of the Ukrainian people.” Again, some are in awe, some aren’t — some are positively disdainful.
• In a different letter, to her fellow congressmen, Pelosi wrote,
On a personal note: this is a moment fraught with meaning for me. My father, Congressman Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., was a Member of the House in 1941 when Winston Churchill came to the Congress on the day after Christmas to enlist our nation’s support in the fight against tyranny in Europe. Eighty-one years later this week, it is particularly poignant for me to be present when another heroic leader addresses the Congress in a time of war — and with Democracy itself on the line.
Many Americans of my acquaintance would gag upon reading that; others would say, “Yes. Exactly.”
• Said Mitch McConnell, “Continuing our support for Ukraine is morally right, but it is not only that. It is also a direct investment in cold, hard American interests.” In many ways, McConnell is a throwback to an earlier GOP (and “throwback” is often among my highest compliments).
• In October, I did a podcast with George F. Will. I said that, as I saw it, Ukraine was the most important thing going on in the affairs of the world. He said he agreed, and elaborated. He went on to cite Harvey Mansfield, to the effect that the purpose of education is to learn how to praise. To learn to recognize high standards and praise those who meet or approach them.
“Our capacity for praise often atrophies from disuse,” said Will. “It’s time to sit back and praise Zelensky. This is what a hero looks like.”
• Let me recommend a piece by Anne Applebaum (who has much to teach on the subjects of Russia, the Soviet Union, and Ukraine): “The Brutal Alternate World in Which the U.S. Abandoned Ukraine.” The subtitle of the piece is, “Ukrainian resistance and American support prevented a wide range of horrors.”
Yes.
• A piece by David Frum is titled “Zelensky Recalled Us to Ourselves.” He begins by quoting a sentence from Zelensky’s speech to Congress: “So much in the world depends on you.” Frum proceeds to say that, “of all the many moving words” in that speech, “those eight may have been the most urgent and important.”
Yes. So much in the world depends on us (whether we like it or not).
• A piece by Matthew Continetti, I found stirring — stirring because true, and boldly composed. The title is “Volodymyr Zelensky, Messenger of Peace.” I wrote an entire book on peace. Questions of war and peace are complicated. But, as people have observed since antiquity, a “peace” controlled by tyrants can be more hellish than war.
(If you don’t have time for a book, I wrote an essay on this subject, drawn from my book: here.)
• “Ukraine and the Right.” That is the title of a piece I wrote in September. A very, very painful subject, for some of us. The trip by Zelensky to the United States triggered a wave of abuse from the Right — abuse of Zelensky and, by extension, of the Ukrainian cause, or predicament. The struggle of Ukrainians to survive. To defend their right to exist.
Nick Catoggio, of The Dispatch, has chronicled and analyzed this abuse. Cathy Young, of The Bulwark, has done the same. I am grateful to the two of them for dealing with it.
Here and now, I will provide just a taste. (You can go as deep as you want.)
Donald Trump Jr.: “Zelensky is basically an ungrateful international welfare queen.”
Candace Owens: “I just want to punch him.”
Matt Walsh: “Get this grifting leech out of our country please.”
Benny Johnson: “This ungrateful piece of sh*t does not have the decency to wear a suit to the White House.”
Charlie Kirk (circulating a photo that shows Speaker Pelosi and the vice president, Kamala Harris, holding the Ukrainian flag given to them by Zelensky): “Rarely does betraying one’s country get caught on camera.”
And on and on and on.
I will repeat a question I have asked before: Who would get the warmer reception at CPAC — or Turning Point USA or many another such venue: Zelensky or Putin? Do you ever hear criticism of Putin from that wing of our politics?
In October, Donald Trump — the ex-president, not his eldest son — gave an interview to Real America’s Voice, in which he blamed the United States for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I wrote about this in an article called “Blame and Responsibility.” Jeane Kirkpatrick used to decry those who tended to “blame America first” — to attribute the ills of the world to the United States.
(Donald Rumsfeld had a pithy saying: “America is not what’s wrong with the world.”)
In the Cold War, we had many, many fellow travelers, useful idiots, apologists, sympathizers . . . The title of Cathy Young’s piece is “Putin’s Useful Idiots.” Cathy, incidentally, was born in Moscow, and has had to deal with these types for a very long time. Whether they come from Left or Right, she deals with them.
I am reminded of Mona Charen’s book, Useful Idiots, published in 2003. The subtitle of that book is “How Liberals Got It Wrong in the Cold War and Still Blame America First.” I reviewed it, here. And Bill Buckley’s blurb was memorable:
I prayed that such a book would be written but doubted anything so wonderfully readable and instructive at the same time would come along. But here is Mona Charen’s great explication of the central conflict of our times.
Here is a tweet from David French, last Thursday:
The critiques of Zelensky’s attire are absurd. There’s a reason for wearing those clothes — to provide a visible reminder that he is coming to us straight from war. His life is in danger. Tens of thousands of Ukrainian citizens are dying.
Churchill did it. He can do it.
My view is this: The anti-Zelensky Americans are not concerned about wardrobe. They are not concerned about federal spending either. (1) Our Ukraine aid is a very small percentage of our defense budget, and what the Ukrainians are accomplishing against Putin’s Russia — an enemy of the United States — is extraordinary. (2) The anti-Zelensky people are far from “budget hawks.” As a rule, they express no concern about spending in other areas.
Many years ago, I was having a discussion with Armando Valladares, that great man. (Cuban dissident and political prisoner. Author of the now-classic memoir Against All Hope. Reagan’s ambassador to the United Nations for human rights. Etc.) We were talking about Americans, and others in free countries, who were pro-Castro, or defensive of that dictatorship.
Armando said that these people were misguided. Misinformed. Naïve. Once they learned the truth — once the archives were opened up and so on — they would see the error of their ways.
My belief was different. In the main, these people were not naïve, not misinformed, not misguided. They knew. They just liked it — the dictatorship, that is. They were on the other side.
Maybe we could have one more comment, from one more anti-Zelensky Republican — Marjorie Taylor Greene, the congresswoman from Georgia. She circulated a photoshopped image of President Zelensky, carting away a tower of cash. And she wrote, “18 Republican TRAITORS who voted for the $1.7 TRILLION omnimonster to send YOUR money to defend Ukraine’s border but NOT America’s border!”
“TRAITORS,” mind you. Jonah Goldberg responded as follows:
The shabby, deceitful, and ignorant effort by hacks, frauds, and morons to paint Zelensky as a greedy money-grubber while his nation is subjected to literally hundreds of thousands of war crimes, including wanton rape and murder, is repugnant beyond words.
Yes. Repugnant beyond words.
I also think of a little Shakespeare, when thinking about the guys who spit venom at, and about, Zelensky. Usually these guys are big on “manliness” and think of themselves as manly. They think, or thought, of Putin’s military the same way.
Zelensky, I suspect, makes them “hold their manhoods cheap.”
• Above, I was recommending articles. Let me recommend one more, by Edward Lucas. He writes,
Again and again this year, Ukrainians have confounded expectations. A country divided between “Ukrainian speakers” and “Russian speakers”? Gone. A corrupt, oligarchic state ruling over an apathetic population? Gone. A bastion of Nazi nostalgia? Gone. Amateur soldiers unable to use modern weapons? Gone. A showbiz president hopelessly out of his depth? Gone.
Well, not entirely gone, as we know. Anyway, Lucas continues,
Whereas Ukraine has exploded old stereotypes, on the other side of the frontlines, Russia has been working hard on reinforcing them. Soviet-style militaristic bombast? Again it fills the airwaves. Rumors and jokes as political currency? You bet.
Etc.
A bit more Lucas: “A few diehard cranks on the far right (chiefly in the United States) and far left (mostly in Europe) still cling to their battered stereotypes.” But “most outsiders” are “impressed by the Ukrainians’ epic resolve, just as they are disgusted by Russian brutality.” Nonetheless, “far too few people in the ‘Old West’ — the big rich countries that never suffered under Communism — are willing to reflect on how badly they misunderstood both Ukraine and Russia.”
Right. Approximately a month after Putin launched his all-out assault on Ukraine last February, I wrote a piece called “The End of Illusions.” Illusions never die out altogether. I mean, there are always “diehard cranks,” as Lucas says. But illusions can be reduced, significantly — dispelled widely, if you will.
(Think of what happened in Israel, after the intifadas. People were scraping their “Peace Now” bumper stickers off their cars.) (Peace Now is a left-wing group formed in 1978.)
• I have quoted Charles Krauthammer before, and will again: The survival of Israel depends on two things: the will of the people to survive, and the support of the United States. I believe the same is true of Ukraine. And I think that we Americans can take satisfaction in the aid we are rendering to these people: who are on the frontlines — fighting, bleeding, and dying — of a wider conflict that involves us all. Drawing the line in Ukraine will spare us untold grief later.
Once more, I will quote David French, who put it well: “Our commitment to aid Ukraine must exceed Putin’s commitment to defeat Ukraine.”