The problem that is Russia—and ours

 

 

Like most of my generation and those ten, even twenty years younger, I have vivid memories of the Cold War, that period of deep tension between Russia and the United States that never, thank goodness, blossomed into a hot war—it remained a standoff for too many tension-filled years. If it began in 1947, as is generally accepted, I was nine years old. I remember (or is it just that I’ve heard it so often?) William Faulkner’s acceptance speech for the 1949 award in literature, with its classic line, “I believe that man will not merely endure: he will prevail. He is immortal … because he has a soul, a spirit capable of compassion and sacrifice and endurance.” I remember Joseph McCarthy and the lives he ruined searching for communists in every woodpile (one might think of today’s desperate effort to impeach Biden). I remember the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 when we were sure that Russian nuclear weapons were about to descend on major American cities. I was in a small town in Missouri, and I urged my parents to leave Chicago and travel to Missouri. I was sure, by staying, they would die. I do not remember hiding under my school desk to avoid an atomic bomb—how futile that seems to us with our knowledge today—but I think that came along after I had completed my early schooling. What I do remember and will never forget was that Russia was the archenemy of the United States. It was a giant, evil bear lurking over our lives. Eventually into the sixties, the tensions lessened. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics broke up, Russia seemed less a threat, and life went on. But I never ever forgot our history with Russia, the stories we heard about the KBG and work camps in Siberia, and other horror tales. Russia was always the enemy. Today, Vladimir Putin, with a KGB background, has brought those days back with a vengeance—not only by invading Ukraine but by his handling of dissent—prominent people poisoned, falling out of skyscraper windows, dying in prison. And his plan to infiltrate American politics and social media and influence the direction of our country has been wildly successful.

It boggles my mind today to read that some Republican members of the House will admit that Russian propaganda has infiltrated some members of the Republican Party, and sometimes the Russian line appears on the floor of the U. S. House of Representatives. (Heather Cox Richardon has an explosive column about how the Russian propaganda machine has been effective in America since trump’s election: (61) April 8, 2024 - by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com) MAGA representatives oppose aid to Ukraine, saying that we need to spend those dollars at home to help the poor—disregard that they are the party who is desperate to cut social security, Medicaid and Medicare and continually votes to close school lunch prograns and anything designed to help low income families get a grip. Disregard also that stopping Russia now ensure the security of America in the future, and also that economists point out that helping beleaguered countries boosts our trade partners in the future—when that war is over and Ukraine stabilized, that country’s grain supplies will again become crucial to the world—and to America.

The presumptive MAGA leader, one former president of our country, has a plan to end the war in Ukraine: he will simply give Ukraine to the Russians, and then fighting will cease. (He has apparently not consulted Zelensky about this). MAGA followers have no idea that stopping the Russian incursion into Ukraine is vital to our country’s security. If Russia is allowed to swallow Ukraine, it will have been rewarded for breaking international law in an unprovoked attack on another country. Russia will then be free to march across Europe, swallowing countries. America will be left without major allies—in addition to defense, that would weaken our trade with other countries, our sales, our whole economy. People who advocate isolationism simply don’t realize what a small world we live in today—America would not survive without its allies.

Have these MAGA folks not studied their history? Do they not know about the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis? Do they not know a bit of earlier history about Germany doing just what Russia is now trying to do—march across Europe subjugating countries. In the late 1930s British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain agreed to let Germany annex Sudetenland, a German-speaking part of Czechoslovakia, because Hitler promised not to take any more land. We know how that worked out. Chamberlain’s disastrous policy of appeasement led to WWII.

Does Marjorie Taylor Greene not know any of this history? Matt Goetz? Mike Johnson? It is appalling to me that we have elected so-called leaders who are so blind to the basics of democracy and to our history. I don’t know whether to blame our education system for not teaching them history or to place the blame squarely on their shoulders for being seduced by power and notoriety. Either way, we need leaders with a grasp of history and diplomacy and international relationships. Trump and his minions are not that.

Rant over.

Who are the Kurds?

With the Turkish offensive in northern Syria, the internet s full not only of news of fighting and atrocities—beheadings being live-streamed to social media, a senior woman Kurdish politician pulled from her car and executed—but beguiling pictures of Kurdish children. They are wide-eyed, curly-haired, charming. Yes, it’s a form of propaganda, but it worked with me. I was charmed and spent some time this morning exploring the internet to find out who these people are and, if possible, why Russia and Turkey are determined to wipe them out.

This is sort of a primer for me, a simplification of what I found online. Wiser heads will no doubt find errors and misinterpretations, but maybe this will help others begin to understand what’s happening.

In my mind, I think I equated the Kurdish with Europe’s Gypsies—people without a country. Although they are racially closer to Sephardic and Ashkenazi Jews, the Kurds are the largest ethnic group without a country. And that is part of today’s problem.

The Kurdish number between thirty and fifty million worldwide, with the highest concentration (about thirty million) in southwest Asia in an area known as Kurdistan, a mountainous terrain located in parts of Iran, Syria, Turkey, and Iraq. There are Kurdish communities in Istanbul as well as diaspora communities in Germany, America, and other countries. The focus today is on those people in the Asian mountains. They have their own strong culture and their own language, but they are usually bilingual, often fluent in Arabic. Islam is the predominant religion, although Kurds follow several other religions. A minority are Christian.  

Betrayal runs through Kurdish history, including from western nations that have promised protection. A treaty signed after WWI created a Kurdish state but was cancelled three years later when the boundaries of Turkey were drawn without regard to the Kurdish state. They are historically a minority in whatever country they occupy, a fact that has led before to genocide and rebellions. Throughout the twentieth century the Kurdish people have fought for their culture and for the creation of a Kurdish state, despite the fact that their host countries seem determined to wipe them out. Because militant Kurds support force to backup nationalism, Turkey has declared the Kurds along its southern border “terrorists” and sees them as a military threat. Turkey wants to control a narrow strip of land on that border now held by the Kurds (at least until last week).

And yes, Kurdish forces fought alongside the Allies in WWII and more recently alongside U.S. forces to defeat Isis in the 21^st-century conflict known as the Syrian civil war, in which the U.S. and its allies, including Russia, supported Syria in its defense against Isis and the militant forces of Iraq.

So why now are we reading that the Russians bombed four Syrian hospitals? Why are they in the mess? They claim they are supporting the regime of Syrian president Beshar Al-Assad, who inherited the presidency from his father in 2000; his father ascended to the presidency through a coup in 1971. A democracy this is not.

Russians insist they are fighting terrorists. In fact a Russian general used the same unfortunate description for the Kurds that a Texas sheriff spouted last week from the White House about Mexican immigrants: They’ll run over your children. Of all the things I worry about, immigrants running over my children--or grandchildren—is low on the list. Experts in international relations suspect, not surprisingly, that Putin’s reasons are much more complicated and self-serving. The politics are so convoluted, I won’t begin to try to sort them out here.

The saddest picture on the net: a small Syrian boy, about three, obviously injured and in distress, said, “I am going to tell God everything.” They were his last words.

Lost in the past…and wishing I was

I have been having so much fun lately reading the Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Fort Worth Register from around 1900. You know, the kind of paper that reported the social news. Mrs. So and So entertained Mrs. A. B. Wharton at tea, and Mrs. Wharton honored her sister-in-law with a luncheon that was “delicious and delightful.” Of course, there are endless advertisements, but there’s an occasional lynching—two ranchers angry at a third rancher—and the lawyer who was surprised when his wife did not greet him at the train station when he arrived from a business trip. He went home and got to exploring—found a letter to her from her lover.

Articles about the early use of automobiles in Fort Worth are especially interesting to me. Did you know there was a racing park, sort of behind where the Montgomery Ward’s Plaza now is? Car races were all the thing, almost as popular as horse races, and A.B. Wharton once raced against legendary driver, Barney Oldfield. I remember my mom talked about Oldfield—if she thought someone was driving too fast, she’d ask, “Who do you think you are? Barney Oldfield?”

These old newspaper accounts are hard on the eyes but a joy to the mind. Sometimes I think I’d like to have lived back then, but of course I realize I’m reading about people of privilege. For large segments of our population—the poor, people of color, the ill—life back then was even harder than it is today.

I’ve had the thought lately that I’ve lived too long—not because I’m tired of life, but because I simply cannot believe what’s going on in our country. For much of my life, Russia was the great enemy to be terribly feared. Their government, if not their people, was bent on destroying America. I lived through the McCarthy era, though my memories of it are vague, and through the Cold War, where we were terrified that atomic bombs would rain down on us. School children hid under their desks or in hallways during raids, and William Faulkner assured us in his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature that mankind will not only endure, he will prevail.

And yet here we are today, with clear evidence that Russia manipulated our presidential elections, indeed was responsible for scooting a criminal into the presidency. Putin as much as said the goal was to turn Americans against their government. Mission successful. Yet the controlling political party does not bat an eyelash. No outrage, no anger. Chin up and eyes out the window—they act like nothing happened. Predictions from those who know are that meddling in our elections is continuing and will increase with the 2020 election—and yet the Senate vows to do nothing, rejects bills that might protect the process.

In another day, in another time there would have been outraged howls of treason and immediate action. What has happened to us as Americans?

I guess one of the things I do when stressed is to cook, because today I made pesto from the basil plant growing in a pot on my desk and made a big pot of the cold cucumber soup I love. For m supper I cooked scallops. Unless I’m going all out and making Coquille St. Jacques, I have a hard time with scallops. But tonight I sort of followed Ina Garten’s recipe for scallops Meuniere—dredged them in flour, browned quickly, then simmered briefly in white wine, and served with a dash of lemon. So good!

Sweet dreams everyone. I hope I dream tonight of scallops and cold cucumber soup and turn-of-the-century teas with “delicious and delightful” food—and not of Russians rigging our voting machines. And I really hope that Faulkner was right.