I have close personal friends on all sides of this Ukrainian nightmare — Kyiv, Donetsk, and Moscow. The Russian translation for the film on me, “The Forecaster,” was done by a Ukrainian Russian-Speaking person in Donetsk. I have listened to all the sides, and all I can say is that the hatred there is engrained and will not be eliminated any time soon.
Perhaps I am old school like Kissinger. What I can say is I have studied war. In contrast, about 50,000 Americans died in battle in Vietnam, including some of my high school classmates. North Vietnam lost up to 1,489,000, and South Vietnam lost up to 1,119,000. In World War I, the total deaths included 9 to 11 million military personnel, with 6 to 13 million civilians. Some have estimated the total number debt of up to 40 million during World War I. In World War II, it is estimated total of 70-85 million people died.
My point is that war is made by politicians causally because they are never the people who die. The best a soldier can hope for is to come home uninjured and alive, and his home and family are still intact. The Neocons always want war. They exist in all countries. Their purpose in life is to hate their imagined enemy. John McCain hated Russians, period. He hated them before Putin as well and always preached war. He may be dead, but there are plenty of Neocons still cheering World War III, like John Bolton and John Brennan, not to forget Hillary.
For the life of me, war just seems to be inherent in our species. Only the Romans ever discovered how to create peace through free trade. Discussing the war in Kyiv, the response to let the Donbas go, which is occupied by Russians anyway, the response is, “No way, they will then want the rest of the country.” But at the same time, they expect the ethnic Russians in the Donbas and Crimea to return to Russia and leave their homes that have been in their families for centuries.
Meanwhile, in Russia, they realize that this is NOT a war against Ukraine, but against the United States. With the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution, the West installed an interim government that was NOT elected by the people. It was that government that sent the army to attack the Donbas — not any Ukrainian elected government. This is the Neocons still waging war, hiding behind Ukraine.
This is an attempt to explain the Minsk Agreement to Zelinsky. In Washington, NOBODY gives a DAMN about the Ukrainian people. The more that die, the better to justify war with Russia. No matter what I say, write, or even try to talk to people on each side, it is in vain. They will not be satisfied without war.
Denmark and Estonia are rejecting any Russians and canceling their visas. The scary part is that China, North Korea, Iran, and Syria, just to name a few, know that Russia cannot be allowed to fall, for they will be next. There seems to be nobody even contemplating a world if Russia was to be defeated or if the world divides. All of this for a strip of land occupied by Russians for centuries? No. It is about a long-seething hatred that has existed for more than a century, and Ukraine is the excuse. There is no resolution until the death count rises substantially. This will NEVER end; even if Putin withdrew, the West would move in for the kill.
