Harry Targ
I cannot get out of my mind the question: What do people who are descendants of those who experienced 27 million dead from a fascist invasion through Eastern Europe of German armies think about the world today? Do they/can they regard NATO and its expansion as merely a “security” organization? These questions do not “excuse” the Russian invasion but help explain it.
And why try to explain it? Well understanding the Russian experience and consciousness is necessary to negotiate an end to war now and in the future. Therefore, NATO has to be dismantled. Resolution of disputes between the separatist regions and Ukraine need to be achieved. International organizations need to address “fascist” currents everywhere.
The first priority in my opinion is to understand why this crisis and the ensuing war occurred. I increasingly view on the US side, the expansion of NATO in the 1990s, the Clinton support of Yeltsin’s destruction of whatever existed of socialism, the US supported coup in 2014, and the continuation in office of the “humanitarian interventionists” from the Clinton era, Bill Clinton to Hillary Clinton, Obama, and Biden. These are part of the narrative that must be told and incorporated into our politics. And I/we need to know much more about the ongoing war between the separatist regions and the government of Ukraine from 2014 to the present.
