Things I Do Not Understand: War Edition
I know that I do not know much about international relations, world politics, or war. I am not a strategist or a scholar of authoritarian regimes. I am broadly educated in world history up to about 1946 when we ran out of time to finish the syllabus so listened to “We Didn’t Start the Fire,” while our teacher tried to explain the lyrics.
#publiceducation
So I do not understand what the best options are or all the pieces in play. I won’t pretend to, I don’t get it.
I don’t get most of it.
Like, I don’t get why folks continue to be shocked by what this killer dictator does. We know that he poisoned some dude in the UK. We know he invaded Crimea and bombed the life out of Syria. I don’t get that. He showed us who he is, and I fully believe that scholars in the future, if there is a future, will mark WWIII as having already started by now.
They’ll come up with some cool academia word for it, like “Frog Soup War” or something to indicate it transitioned gradually from a cold war to a hot one.
It’s the first to include a digital front. And I don’t understand that either.
I also don’t understand the POINT of having all of the things that we have: the alliances and the weapons and the trainings and the treaties and the multi trillion dollar military budget, if we’re just going to sit and watch this happen?
I mean, in my bones I know the point of the military industrial complex is NOT to stop war and promote peace, but instead to make as much money as possible, I know that, but it’s different to see it here. To know that we have all these things and we… are just watching this and saying “Hey, well NOW we won’t do business with you.” After Crimea. After the hits. After Syria. I’m sure there’s more we’re missing. “NOW we draw the line.”
And I also do not understand sanctions, and I know that I do not understand it, but it seems to me that if we had reacted this way when Syria happened, that would have been the moment to draw the line. I dunno. That’s from parenting books. You gotta “NOPE” it quick if you’re going with a mild approach. We didn’t. We let Vladdy keep buying candy at the market.
So I don’t get this. I don’t get any of this.
I don’t get why we aren’t in there building pop-up hospitals and dropping off defensive weapons.
I’m sure there are reasons, there must be reasons, but they feel like bullshit to me.
This feels like the sickest plot twist, the dark fallout of reality television. We scroll through the war on our phones.
I do not know what to do. I feel like I know how we got here, but that’s not very pertinent right now. I want to rant but that’s pointless. To sit in my peaceful home, ridden with guilt, whom does that help? Not a damn person.
There was a peace rally in town I almost attended but chose not to, for they were against any intervention and I am not. I want us to go in and help. What’s the point of being the United States if we don’t go in and help?
(I know, such a Pollyanna moment, forgive me).
Because if Russia stops fighting, there will be no war.
If Ukraine stops fighting, there will be no Ukraine.
There’s no both-sides’ing this. I’m not against “all forms of violence,” unless there’s a carve-out for violence-against-occupiers. Which there might be, I haven’t read it all, like I said, there’s a lot I don’t know about war.
Once upon a time I was a Peace and Conflict Studies major, I took all the language requirements but the courses just broke me open. A true bleeding heart. I’d wanted to be a White Helmet but couldn’t take it.
Because I don’t understand how this one precious life that we have—the miracle of our existence at all, the conditions of the planet and atmosphere, the circumstances that lead to our ancestors meeting, all of the pieces that brought us into existence, and some men are hellbent on just destroying everything around them. They cannot handle the cosmic connection, they are insulted by their cellular proximity, they feel it diminished them. These destructive fools who waste their less-than-a-century, literal once-in-a-lifetime-life, KILLING PEOPLE. Destroying cultures. Because they can.
I just don’t understand it.
At fucking all.
Pretty Good Ugly 