What Did Ukraine Do to Warrant a Full-Scale War?

As the current shepherd of the Atlanta Jewish Times, I think it is my duty, responsibility and obligation to speak out about the horrors and atrocities being committed by Putin against Ukraine and its citizens.

Putin is a tyrant, he is wantonly killing people and there is a moral obligation for everyone and anyone who has an outlet to use that vehicle to voice their opinion to their followers and friends, our political leaders, the Ukrainians and Russians and Putin himself.

I have refrained my entire life from drawing comparisons between current events and WWII in any capacity. Many worldwide events have been heinous, but I have felt — except for instances of genocide — that all post-WWII wars, incursions and combats have fallen very short of an evil and demented dictator’s well-planned and -executed quest for the consolidation of European countries at any expense, including the death of 85 million people. Unfortunately, Putin rises to the occasion. (As a perspective, WWII took the lives of 85 million people on this planet, COVID deaths stand around 6 million.)

Putin, like other dictators in the past, came to power through a somewhat democratic process that he then dismantled upon taking office. He feels that his country has been treated unfairly by the world and seeks to return it to the glory days of the past. He’s started wars against neighboring countries in order to take back what he claims is rightfully his. In the end, he has no concern for the death and destruction involved. Unfortunately, this is just the tip of the iceberg as it concerns historical comparisons.

Putin is nothing more than a murderous thug and malicious dictator. His actions speak quite loud to this point. He does not take advice from the people he appointed to assist him, and his advisors are seen as reluctant to offer any disagreement.

He mostly stays in isolation, and when he does meet with people, he physically stays dozens of feet away from anyone (note this from television coverage and media descriptions). He incarcerates or kills anyone who has a dissenting opinion; Russian prisons are bursting at the seams. He hates democracy, capitalism, freedom and liberty. He has shut down the free media and press in his own country so he can control the facts, lies and knowledge base of his people.

He has no interest in his own people knowing the true atrocities that he is perpetrating. He does not want his people to know what he is doing, how he is doing it and what the world thinks; and, as we have heard from news reports, his troops don’t know what their orders or goals are either.

He has rewritten the history of Ukraine to fit his narrative and passes off his work of fiction as fact. He published his intentions (not strategy) ahead of time to garner some sort of acceptance of future actions and then uses propaganda to justify abominable activity. All as we watch from the sidelines, hoping that his rants and actions will just go away or belie his true intent. Wake up, they don’t. He means every word, and his subsequent actions are worse than we could have expected. Another tyrant follows through with his stated goals, surprise!

These are the less nefarious offenses. Once Putin began the ground war on the pretense of taking back land he falsely claims is his, his deeds then became those of an insane, delusional, authoritarian despot. He is either using, moving into place to use, or threatening to use any and all weapons of mass destruction at his disposal, whether they be cluster bombs, phosphorus bombs, vacuum bombs, chemical agents, biological agents or nuclear weapons.

Just ponder for a moment, would these be the weapons of choice to use if your intent was to take over a country; or, perhaps more likely, just to kill massive amounts of people? If he really felt some sort of kinship for Ukrainians, would he be threatening nuclear war? Is that an act of a leader or a normal person for that matter?

He is waging a war to intimidate the people of Ukraine or kill them all, if need be. Indiscriminate bombing does not affect military resistance, it attempts to cow civilians into submission. Indiscriminate bombing targets civilians, women and children, schools and hospitals, markets and playgrounds, museums and memorials. Effectively destroying a country, its population, its history and its culture.

Reminiscent of ISIS? Putin is using every disgusting tactic at his disposal, and what is his rebuke to the world? “If you intervene, I will use worse tactics and munitions.” Essentially, cowing world leaders, including ours. Putin is a sick human being. This is at least the third time that he is killing people in other countries.

Our response is clearly not working. We must do more. Hundreds of people are dying each day. Are we waiting until the toll reaches thousands? Is anyone under the pretense that at some point this deranged human is going to stop?

Exactly what did Ukraine do to warrant such mass destruction? In fact, what did Ukraine do to warrant a full-scale war? Rewriting history to remove Ukrainians as a people and as a culture so as to give license to genocide is what an insane, demented, evil person would do. I ask you this: is our response in any way frustrating Putin’s goals? With the entire world in agreement (except China, Iran and North Korea — what a club), why are we not doing more? I am not suggesting we go to war. I understand that the world is on the brink of a nuclear disaster.

Unfortunately, we will remain on the brink while Putin remains in control of Russia. Let’s not kid ourselves, any solution short of removing Putin will keep us on the brink. The only saving grace I see is that, like all malevolent dictators, his people do not unanimously support his actions. Appeasement keeps us on the brink, it does not reduce the threat.

The question facing the world is: how many countries will he take over and how many people will he kill until we do something that risks a larger-scale war? Putin will not stop. How many will die before we do more?