[FRIAM] Enamine

[glen]

We call on Biden to reject reckless demands for a no-fly zone
We deplore Russia’s aggression. However, it strains credulity to think that a US war with Russia would make the American people safer or more prosperous
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/mar/11/we-call-on-biden-to-reject-reckless-demands-for-a-no-fly-zone

Directly on the heels of counter-arguing with EricC about the inadequacy of hypocrisy as an argument, this open letter "peacenick" rhetoric really gets on my nerves. The sanctions are anemic, and damn near cowardly. The tagline to the open letter "safer or more prosperous" is spot on. Because *that's* why we do things, right? So we can be safe and prosperous? Safety and prosperity are the foundations of our ethics? Bullshit.

Buffers and proxy wars are the epitome of manipulative exploitation. I'm no war-monger. But this democratic backsliding and trend toward dictators with leaders like Modi, Orbán, Lukashenko, et al *are* the actual front line. And that front line isn't geographical. It's ethical.

War, even nuclear, might serve as a tacit demonstration to our right-wing friends that freedom, the word they love so much, doesn't lie in safety and prosperity. It lies in the recognition of, and united stance against, exploitative bullies.

We're lucky I'm not in charge, I guess. 8^D


On 3/11/22 02:49, David Eric Smith wrote:
>  The notion of “using” buffer states — which I hate, by the way, as an attitude of consigning people and regions to disposability categories — as a way to allow graded responses and stalemates from which large bully-powers could withdraw, would have been the template for most alliance treaties.