Ukraine: We Told You So

“Helping Ukraine” has done exactly what we said shipping weapons to a slaughterhouse would do. It has hurt Ukraine.

I hate to say I told you so. It’s obnoxious really. But sometimes it is an important point. In this case the point is this: the people who are always right about wars were right about the war in Ukraine, whereas the “experts” who are always on television and in government were, as usual, wrong.

Which of the following statements about the war with Russia comes closest to your personal views?

Ukraine should continue fighting until it wins the war
Ukraine should seek to negotiate an ending to the war as soon as possible

Gallup asked that question three years ago, two years ago, one year ago, and this year. It asked it of Ukrainians. The first time, 72% of Ukrainians wanted Ukraine to continue fighting and only 22% to negotiate an end to the war. Most recently, 24% want to continue fighting and 69% want to negotiate an end to the war.

If you’re a good U.S. news consumer and follower of weapons-funded “leaders,” then you know perfectly well that Ukraine must keep fighting until it wins the war. After all, Putin will be invading Idaho by Thursday if an end to the war is negotiated. Or even if that doesn’t happen, the rule of law will collapse — it will be as if someone had destroyed Afghanistan and Iraq, fueled a genocide in Gaza, and sanctioned international courts for doing their jobs — total lawlessness!

That’s not a terrible argument — absurdly hypocritical and blinkered, but still a fair point in there somewhere. Only that’s not why you used to tell me that Ukrainians needed to fight on. Do you remember what the reason was? You told me it hundreds of times. Has it slipped your mind? It was that Ukrainians said in polls that they wanted the war to continue and who THE HELL did I think I was to dare to suggest otherwise?! I mean, it’s not as if I lived on the planet that a nuclear war would render uninhabitable. This was a decision for UKRAINIANS. UKRAINIANS! Why couldn’t I get that through my thick skull?

But now, after years of pointless killing, dying, wounding, traumatizing, and destroying, we’ve got 69% of Ukrainians telling pollsters they think an end to the war should be negotiated as soon as possible. I’m willing to bet that most, if not every last one, of those expressing that wise opinion would also now agree that such a negotiated end should have been achieved years ago. Nobody but war profiteers, sadists, and politicians clinging to power with rightwing support (yes, on both sides of this war) is better off for the now-desired negotiated end having been delayed so miserably long. Less than two years into Afghanistan and Iraq a majority in the U.S. said those wars should never have been started — including millions of people who had fervently denounced war protests months before. It’s not hard to predict something that happens over and over again.

The Ukrainian ruler says the war must go on, presumably because democracy. This may be difficult to hear, but there’s not a democracy in Ukraine or within 500 million miles of Ukraine. If we had actual democracies these wars would never get started. If we even thought in democratic terms, our priorities would be ending the mass killing and destruction, halting the arms trade to redirect resources into human needs, and devising credible means by which the residents of various sections of Ukraine — and not the Ukrainian or Russian government — can collectively make the best of the disaster they’ve been handed.

So, how can I claim that those who were prematurely for peace were “right” and those who didn’t want to sit down and end the war until years later were “wrong”? Because we said, over and over and over, that a negotiated peace would have to come sooner or later and better sooner, that people would come to understand this fact eventually — but by then we’d have more corpses and orphans, and that endless proclamations of victory just around the corner from both sides of an endless war are reasons to end the thing, not reasons to wave flags and cheer for the war machine.

“Helping Ukraine” has done exactly what we said shipping weapons to a slaughterhouse would do. It has hurt Ukraine. It has hurt Ukraine deeply, militarized much of the world, and thrown global agendas and priorities wildly out of whack. The way to help Ukraine was always going to be begun by negotiating an end to the war. Don’t believe me? Ask the Ukrainians! I’m not sure how you dare to defy their will.