The world is in an uproar over the recent stories coming out of Ukraine. As with all wars, massacres have reportedly begun at the hands of Russian troops. Ukrainian troops have also been reported shooting captured Russian soldiers in the kneecaps. Verifying these stories is hard, which is why I haven't weighed in heavily on the videos. Right now, the media is laser-focused on the reported brutality in Bucha, outside of Kyiv. Again, this is a nasty war. It's brutal. And these events happen. They've happened since the days of ancient Babylon, Assyria, and Greece. Yet, these massacres are being used by the Ukrainian government and the liberal media to make a case for genocide. Let's simmer down for a second. We must rehash a trite, though important note about genocide before we allow the DC "Uniparty" to shove us into a full-blown war with Russia.
It's a very simple axiom to remember when debating these issues. Genocide is a war crime, but not all war crimes are genocide. Polish lawyer Raphäel Lemkin defined the term, and it was adopted by the United Nations' Genocide Convention, which would force the world to respond under international law.
"Genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: Killing members of the group; Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group."
I don't want to get too far into the weeds. I'm not trying to marginalize the horrors reportedly occurring in Ukraine. I have no doubts that Russian troops, frustrated with the whole situation, are going haywire on the Ukrainian population. These troops are not just facing 150-200,000 Ukrainian troops. They're facing a whole nation that is dead set against them. Like Napoleon's invasion of Spain, the invaders know this and are, in turn, killing everything they see. The success of an insurgency effort, which could be the next step in this war, is contingent on continued civilian support. The Boers felt the same way when the British invaded Orange Free State and Transvaal in South Africa. The French faced the same issues in Algeria. The British and French forces knew this as well, which is why they locked up the civilian population in concentration camps. The British camps, which housed detained white Afrikaners during the Boers Wars, were especially brutal, and the conditions were heinous.
Not to be insensitive, but this isn't new. Second, there's an ulterior motive here. I have no doubts that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is doing all he can to repel the Russian invasion. He's proven to be an adept commander-in-chief as well. But we all know he wants a more robust Western response. He wants more arms and ammunition. He wants a no-fly zone. Lobbing allegations of genocide by Russian forces will place pressure on the West, specifically the United States, to be more hands-on regarding this conflict. We have to act if genocide is occurring. It's the reason why the Clinton administration said "acts of genocide,"
but not genocide was occurring in Rwanda in 1994. After our venture in Mogadishu, Somalia, in 1993, which brought the Clinton presidency to its knees, Slick Willy was hamstrung when it came to further foreign adventures.
But back to Ukraine. We must be very careful here. This is where doubt and suspicion should be cast on everything coming out of Ukraine. This war has the potential to spill out into a nuclear exchange between Russia and the United States. It also doesn't help that Joe Biden is president, along with his team of incompetent diplomats who have been rolled and outmaneuvered since day one of this presidency. Do you trust Biden in a wartime situation? The man opted to stay on vacation while Kabul fell, only returning to DC after intense media scrutiny. Secretary of State Antony Blinken was rolled by China in Anchorage last year. He's been AWOL for the most part. He's a deer in the headlights. Kamala Harris offers word salad. Not to mention, half of this administration peddles one set of talking points while the other half doles out a separate, contradictory set.
Even if the allegations of genocide are true, we can't wage an effective response when it's C-Squad running the country. This isn't X-Men. This is X-Force—and if you haven't seen "Deadpool 2," here's a spoiler—they all die through their own incompetence and inexperience.
I'm perfectly fine with arming the Ukrainians. I'm perfectly fine with supplying them with everything they need to take out Russian armor and aircraft. We can't do a no-fly zone. The risk of nuclear war is too great, plus we would need to take out anti-aircraft sites in Belarus and Russia proper to establish an effective no-fly zone. Airstrikes on Russian soil? No. I'm also getting really tired of Zelenskyy's demands, which he says will show the level of our commitment. We don't have to guarantee anything. Two nuclear powers in a proxy war-like situation have issues of their own, but what Zelenskyy, and some folks here in DC, are pushing goes beyond that. It's a total pro-World War III position. We need to take it slow.
Ukraine has an interest in these genocide allegations. The genocides of the past had clear hyper-nationalistic goals. The Hutu wanted to purge the land of the Tutsi. The Germans wanted a Jewish and Slav-free Europe, with the Soviet Union serving as Lebensraum for the new Aryan race. Russia hoped to blitzkrieg the Ukrainians, cause the government to collapse, and replace it with a pro-Moscow regime. Not sure I see the supplantation of the Ukrainian people with Russian ones in that plan. No doubt, if true, these are war crimes, but remember, not all war crimes are genocide.