A Rant

A Reality Rant

        I am a former history teacher and a student of history, and I take offense to the distortions of the media, both regarding history and the present. Here is my rant on the subject. 

        It seems media and now society and culture must all label the fighting nations as “good” and “evil”, picking the side that best fits its agenda as good and the one opposing its agenda as evil.  This historically happened for the first time in and after World War I, when the United States, own Woodrow Wilson, the prince of peace, called a side wicked, and assessed blame for the war on the losers, and demanded they be punished for starting the war, (thus sowing the seeds for WWII). Before this, war was viewed as a result of geopolitics. Countries fought wars for their nation’s interests,   . . .this wasn’t considered either good or evil, it was reality, wars would happen. Now wars have to have moral undercurrents and overtones . .but if wars have to have these undercurrents and overtones the media manipulates the facts of the situation to highlight the evils of one side or the other, and the good of the other side.

       Here are the facts of this war between Russia and Ukraine. 

  In 2010, the election in Ukraine was contested, (similar to the 2020 election in the United States). This caused the government to ground to a halt, and a revolt of the people caused an election to be scheduled for 2014. Russia, was a backer or at least a fan of the government elected in 2010. During this time, Ukraine had experienced fighting among factions within the country. The government in power did not have control of all parts of the country. This is when Russia took Crimea and parts of eastern Ukraine, claiming Russian Ukrainians were being killed by Ukrainian and rebel sides in Ukraine. (what do you think would have happened if Jan. 6 had been successful . just a thought). Since that time, for eight years, the government in Ukraine was still not able to control areas still inside eastern Ukraine. Russia has complained about attacks on pro-Russian Ukrainians in these regions for the last eight years. This is the basis of the war we now are watching. . .

     I wanted to comment on media distortions about the war itself. . .One example is the narrative of Russia being bogged down and incompetent, etc . . .This war is not even three weeks old, and yet Russia has made major advances into the country of Ukraine. . .I did a historical comparison. We invaded Iraq in February of 2003. How long do you think it took the US to gain control of Iraq?  I found two answers, one was 46 days, and the other was 6 months.  Since we didn’t overrun Iraq in a week, does that mean the US armed services were incompetent or that President George W. Bush was crazy? The terrorist attack of  September 11 was carried out by terrorists from Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, did that justify the U.S. attacking the sovereign nations of Afghanistan and Iraq?

    War is evil, the nations involved in war are people, to demonize or glorify them, one side or the other,  is sickening. The war needs to end before it spreads.