Parable: There once was an alcoholic husband who severely abused his wife both physically and mentally. The wife endured this situation for many years because of her children, but when they were grown up, she left him and started divorce proceedings. Yet for years thereafter the husband insistently told his friends that it was his wicked ex-wife who “caused” the divorce that broke up his “happy” family.
Likewise, in history everyone knows that the “shot heard around the world” fired by “embattled farmers” in 1775 (immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous poem) started the American revolution. But they also know said shot was not the cause of the revolution.
Which leads to a rumination on the difference between “starting” and “causing” the Ukraine war. The occasion is two singular events that recently occurred within a week of each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
One was at the United Nations on February 24th, where Ukraine introduced a resolution demanding that Russia withdraw from all occupied territories and be held accountable for war crimes. 93 countries voted to support the resolution, 65 abstained, and 18 opposed including Israel, Russia, and the United States. This pairing of Russia and the United States immediately triggered howls of outrage and indignation from the Democratic party and the legacy media who declared the vote to be shocking, shameful, and clear proof that President Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
Conveniently ignored amidst this uproar was the fact that later the same day the United States introduced a resolution in the Security Council calling for an end to the Ukraine war without any reference to who “started” or who “caused” it, The resolution passed the 15-member Council without a single dissenting vote.
Clearly the coordinated fury on the part of Democrats and their media allies was driven by the very real fear that Biden's failed war might somehow be transformed into Trump's successful peace.
The other event happened five days earlier in Brussels, where Dr Jeffrey Sachs addressed the European Parliament on the subject of the Ukraine crisis. A liberal Democrat from New York, a distinguished economics professor at both Harvard and Columbia Universities, special advisor to the United Nations Secretary General, Sachs has long been a widely esteemed, albeit often controversial, authority on assistance to developing countries. He has also been in past years an advisor to the Polish and Ukrainian governments among others.
Variously described as “fiery” or “stunning,” the impact of Sachs’ speech (available on YouTube) is perhaps best summed up by the Reuters headline: “Jeffrey Sachs’ Explosive Address at the EU Parliament Sends Shock Waves Across Europe.”
The speech, which ranged widely over the 40 years in which Sachs has been a prominent player in world economic and political affairs, can best be described as a blistering denunciation of US foreign policy across five presidential administrations, all of which were complicit in the “long-term project “ of NATO expansion purposely designed to provoke and destabilize the Russian Federation that emerged from the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—and which ultimately would prove to be the deeper cause of the war in Ukraine which has brought immense devastation to that country and utter disarray to American and European foreign policies.
Sachs’ remarks were given added weight not only by the documentation he offered in support of his assertions but also by the fact of being able to cite his personal relationships with major actors on both sides of this long-running Russo-American conflict—including from the Russian side Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and current Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and from the American side Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, and former National Security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Jake Sullivan.
The positive response from the members of the European Parliament to the speech and Q&A afterwards, showed that many of them had been thinking what Sachs was saying and appreciated an American of his stature candidly and publicly stating these views.
Quite predictably Sachs' speech was largely ignored or badly mischaracterized in American media, a reaction strikingly similar to the willful misrepresentation of events at the United Nations the following week and with the very same partisan purpose.
As dramatic as these events were in themselves they must be seen in conjunction with the remarkable visits to the White House just days later of the leaders of France, Great Britain, and Ukraine—climaxing with the combustible Oval Office encounter on Feb. 28th between presidents Zelensky and Trump.
Particularly worthy of note is what Britain's Prime Minister Keith Stamer said to President Trump: "Thank you for changing the conversation to bring about the possibility of a peace deal.”
Indeed, Donald Trump has changed the Ukraine conversation and many other conversations as well.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer,
Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.
The Difference Between Starting the Ukraine War and Causing the Ukraine War
There once was an alcoholic husband who severely abused his wife both physically and mentally. The wife endured this situation for many years because of her children, but when they were grown up, she left him and started divorce proceedings. Yet for years thereafter the husband insistently told his friends that it was his wicked ex-wife who “caused” the divorce that broke up his “happy” family.
Likewise, in history everyone knows that the “shot heard around the world” fired by “embattled farmers” in 1775 (immortalized by Ralph Waldo Emerson's famous poem) started the American revolution. But they also know said shot was not the cause of the revolution.
Which leads to a rumination on the difference between “starting” and “causing” the Ukraine war. The occasion is two singular events that recently occurred within a week of each other on opposite sides of the Atlantic.
One was at the United Nations on February 24th, where Ukraine introduced a resolution demanding that Russia withdraw from all occupied territories and be held accountable for war crimes. 93 countries voted to support the resolution, 65 abstained, and 18 opposed including Israel, Russia, and the United States. This pairing of Russia and the United States immediately triggered howls of outrage and indignation from the Democratic party and the legacy media who declared the vote to be shocking, shameful, and clear proof that President Trump was a puppet of Vladimir Putin.
Conveniently ignored amidst this uproar was the fact that later the same day the United States introduced a resolution in the Security Council calling for an end to the Ukraine war without any reference to who “started” or who “caused” it, The resolution passed the 15-member Council without a single dissenting vote.
Clearly the coordinated fury on the part of Democrats and their media allies was driven by the very real fear that Biden's failed war might somehow be transformed into Trump's successful peace.
The other event happened five days earlier in Brussels, where Dr Jeffrey Sachs addressed the European Parliament on the subject of the Ukraine crisis. A liberal Democrat from New York, a distinguished economics professor at both Harvard and Columbia Universities, special advisor to the United Nations Secretary General, Sachs has long been a widely esteemed, albeit often controversial, authority on assistance to developing countries. He has also been in past years an advisor to the Polish and Ukrainian governments among others.
Variously described as “fiery” or “stunning,” the impact of Sachs’ speech (available on YouTube) is perhaps best summed up by the Reuters headline: “Jeffrey Sachs’ Explosive Address at the EU Parliament Sends Shock Waves Across Europe “.
The speech, which ranged widely over the 40 years in which Sachs has been a prominent player in world economic and political affairs, can best be described as a blistering denunciation of US foreign policy across five presidential administrations, all of which were complicit in the “long-term project “ of NATO expansion purposely designed to provoke and destabilize the Russian Federation that emerged from the chaotic collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991—and which ultimately would prove to be the deeper cause of the war in Ukraine which has brought immense devastation to that country and utter disarray to American and European foreign policies.
Sachs’ remarks were given added weight not only by the documentation he offered in support of his assertions but also by the fact of being able to cite his personal relationships with major actors on both sides of this long-running Russo-American conflict—including from the Russian side Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin and current Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, and from the American side Clinton Defense Secretary William Perry, the last US ambassador to the Soviet Union Jack Matlock, and former National Security advisors Zbigniew Brzezinski and Jake Sullivan.
The positive response from the members of the European Parliament to the speech and Q&A afterwards, showed that many of them had been thinking what Sachs was saying and appreciated an American of his stature candidly and publicly stating these views.
Quite predictably Sachs' speech was largely ignored or badly mischaracterized in American media, a reaction strikingly similar to the willful misrepresentation of events at the United Nations the following week and with the very same partisan purpose.
As dramatic as these events were in themselves they must be seen in conjunction with the remarkable visits to the White House just days later of the leaders of France, Great Britain, and Ukraine—climaxing with the combustible Oval Office encounter on Feb. 28th between presidents Zelensky and Trump.
Particularly worthy of note is what Britain's Prime Minister Keith Stamer said to President Trump: "Thank you for changing the conversation to bring about the possibility of a peace deal.”
Indeed, Donald Trump has changed the Ukraine conversation and many other conversations as well.
William Moloney studied history and politics at Oxford and the University of London and received his Doctorate from Harvard University. His articles have appeared in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, The Hill, Washington Post, Washington Times, Philadelphia Inquirer,
Baltimore Sun, Denver Post and Human Events.