[Peace] Flyer for anti-war demo, Sat. 1 Feb, 2-4pm, Main & Neil

[C. G. Estabrook]

The Impeachment Show: Asking All the Wrong Questions on Ukraine
{by Maj. Danny Sjursen, USA (ret.) | January 27, 2020 | edited}

Apathy and misplaced priorities are the twin diseases of this generation. I spent Saturday afternoon January 25, speaking to a small crowd in opposition to war – or at least opposition to escalating the existing state of war – with Iran, during a local rally at the University of Kansas, in Lawrence, KS. 

What a far cry, a shameful fall from grace, for a college and city that was a veritable war zone in the aftermath of President Nixon’s Cambodia invasion and the killing of four students at Kent State University. Hundreds, then thousands, protested. The student union building was burned, gunfire exchanged with the police, the National Guard called in, and the entire city placed under curfew for a few days. Indeed, little Lawrence was, for years, a flashpoint city in the anti-Vietnam War movement. These days, as I flippantly mentioned in my speech, a generation of some 30,000 KU students can hardly fathom looking up from their iPhones long enough to consider a boots-on-the-ground rally in the physical company of other human beings.

Not that the KU student body isn’t – at least vapidly – political. These kids are passionately concerned, at least in the medium of sidewalk chalk-art and SnapChat-activism, with two major issues: identity (race, gender, sexuality) politics and of course, reflexive anti-Trumpism. These are, on some level, important subjects. Nevertheless, any serious grasp up of U.S. foreign policy, and inherent American militarist imperialism seems distressingly lacking. 

There is a general societal disease of misplaced priorities – especially when The Donald is involved. Nearly every vaguely liberal, generally affluent, KU student one meets is genuinely obsessed with Trump: his racism, temperament, and especially the apparent necessity of his impeachment and removal. If only they – along, it must be said, with the mainstream left-leaning media and Democratic Party establishment – could cogently articulate just why...

Halfway through my twelve minute keynote rant, a woman – though undoubtedly meaning well – legitimately cut me off and bellowed, "Impeach him already!" Odd, this, I reckoned, as I lost my chain of thought. Trump wasn’t the core theme of my speech – which focused more on the value of dissent and longterm folly of U.S.-Iran policy – and I was quite certain I hadn’t uttered the words Ukraine, Biden, or the phrase quid pro quo. "Sure," I countered, "impeach him, but for the right reasons:" for enabling the terror bombing of Yemen, illegally assassinating a top leader of a sovereign nation, or escalating the unsanctioned chaos of American regional warfare. 

Nonetheless, the woman’s outburst, along with the multiplicity of "Impeach Him" signs in the crowd (one read: "Impeach the M*********er Already") was instructive. To wit, any rational observer (do such Americans still exist?) masochistic enough to have watched the the last couple of weeks of wall-to-wall Ukraine-gate, impeachment charade cable news coverage must conclude that Trump’s show trial has perhaps ineluctably distracted the American people. Only a misdirected, reality TV-style immersion of this caliber seems capable of elbowing the real scandals and crises of our times – the Afghanistan Papers, egregious Soleimani assassination, and no-end-in-sight ongoing American forever wars – straight out of the headlines.

What’s more, lost in the impeachment fiasco – and in the collective understanding of KU students, MSNBC talking heads, and Democratic lawmakers, alike – is any concern, debate, critique, or even tough questions about the other, potentially nuclear, calamity of the day: America’s aggressive, reckless Russia policy. Specifically, how U.S. actions in Ukraine – under Trump, Obama, and other post-fall-of-the-Berlin-Wall presidents – have foolishly stoked a new, equally dangerous (and highly unnecessary) Cold War with Moscow. Why was Washington considering arming a deeply problematic Ukrainian regime for a proxy war with Russia waged several thousands of miles from America’s shores? Is this prudent policy? Don’t expect to hear any semblance of such sensible discussion; not on America’s campuses, corporate cable channels, or Capitol Hill.

There are obvious holes in Washington’s Ukraine policy and the bipartisan – but these days mostly Democratic – policy toward Russia. First, it was two American presidents – Bill Clinton and George W. Bush – who provoked Moscow by expanding NATO’s anti-Russian alliance right up into the heart of the old Soviet republics and sphere of influence. It was the US, its State Department and intelligence services, that helped stoke the coup that overthrew a duly elected, Russia-friendly, president in Ukraine. And it is Washington that props up the current, questionably legitimate, Ukrainian regime, which includes neo-Nazis. Finally, it is America which has chosen bellicosity over diplomacy, by seeking to provide one side in the proxy war with lethal weapons. More than 13,000 have died in the resulting war.

The absurdist ringleader of the misdirected impeachment distraction, Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff, had the gall to announce that Trump’s alleged Ukraine interference conspiracy theory – and presumably the whole ongoing Eastern European conflagration – was "brought to you by the Kremlin." On the contrary, the dangerous proxy war in Ukraine and burgeoning Cold War with nukes-saturated Russia was brought to us by the White House, Adam…
~~~
Danny Sjursen is a retired U.S. Army officer. He is the author of a memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, ‘Ghostriders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge.’ Follow him on Twitter at @SkepticalVet. 
~~~
This flyer is produced by members & friends of AWARE, the ‘Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort’ of Champaign-Urbana <https://www.facebook.com/groups/305897426305/>. The TV program ‘AWARE on the Air,’ a local discussion of war news, is on Urbana Public Television, Tuesdays at 10pm (& YouTube).  		  ###
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