>From our nice safe homes here thousands of miles and an entire ocean away, it might not seem like an all-out war, but for those living in Kyiv - or anywhere else in Ukraine - it might feel a little different, what with power and heating outages in the middle of the winter and rocket attacks on apartment buildings throughout the country. For the families of the over 12,000 civilians killed by the fascist-connected Putin's assault it might feel different. "NATO made him do it"? Please. This is an all-out war against the entire Ukrainian population, complete with rapes, tortures, etc. How can anything NATO did or didn't do in any way justify that? (In fact, Putin is NATO's best ally; he's done more to popularize NATO in Eastern Europe than anybody else.)
So, as far as an "all out war" - I think the more proper term would be "invasion", although "war of conquest" would also be perfectly correct. Neither of these terms makes it any better, though. And to those throughout Europe who are experiencing Putin's "asymmetric" war - sabotages, political assassinations, airspace provocation and outright interference, political interference -- to them it might feel like the opening overture to what Ukrainians are experiencing, especially since Russian forces have already invaded some other countries, like Georgia and Moldova for example. Try living in Lithuania or Finland, for example, and see how it feels. True, for us here in the U.S. we're "safe" except for the continual Russian propaganda campaign, much of which is hidden by Russian bots, etc., which is highly influential in much of what passes for the left here. Nor is it any accident that Putin's most important ally is Trump. It's true that Biden's support for Ukraine was half-hearted, as Taras Bilous points out in a recent interview <https://jacobin.com/2026/02/ukraine-war-socialist-bilous-peace?fbclid=IwY2xjawQLsupleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEei17UTERtKUUMAP3cli9ZfTWOanaA6OFsNtCKfLsH3N90WviPX2joe0QWg3I_aem_VYQpVLThqt4Ug0aJjQ1JwA> in Jacobin. And it's true that Biden's hesitancy has played an important role in enabling a degree of Russian success, but at least he never allied himself with Putin. One more reason why those who support Ukraine's resistance to the fascist-connected Putin's invasion were right in not dodging the question of trying to keep Trump out of the White House last year. Too bad USN didn't deal with that issue in their statement. John Reimann -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#40838): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/40838 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/117982406/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/13617172/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
